Wild Reincarnation
by Ice-Tea-1983
Summary: In the Forest of Death, Naruto wakes up early and doesn't feel like himself. He has memories that he has not lived, and his body isn't as responsive as his new memories want him. What is going on?
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** This fanfiction uses existing ideas, characters and or worlds, but is an independent work of art. I own nothing, hence the reason for publishing my writings here instead of in real books where I could make some money.

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**Prologue**

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In a dark, gloomy forest, three children were huddled in a hollow under the roots of a gigantic tree.

The two boys were unconscious, and the girl was close to nodding off.

The girl possessed a full head of pink hair, a slightly oversized forehead, a red dress to mid-thighs with slits on the sides, and shorts underneath for decency. Holding her hair partially back, was a dark strip of cloth over her head, a metal plate on the middle with an etching of a stylised leaf.

Shaking her head, to rid herself of weariness, the girl moistened and wrung out a washcloth, which she placed on the forehead of the dark haired boy.

The dark haired boy was breathing erratically and was obviously in pain.

The blonde boy with a forehead protector like the ones the other two had on was unconscious, but not in any pain, as far as one could see.

The girl was Haruno Sakura, the dark haired boy was Uchiha Sasuke, and the blonde boy was Uzumaki Naruto … or _was_ he?

Opening his eyes, he saw darkness … _'Am I dreaming?'_

A knot under his shoulder convinced him that this was not the case, as did a gleam of light that filtered through what he identified as roots and branches … _'I'm under a tree? How did I get here? _

_'The last thing I remember is eating another vile creation made by my uncute fiancée … Akane? _

_'No, that's not right … the last thing I remember is that pale, longhaired snake bastard punching me in the stomach with scattered fingers! _

_'Which one is it?'_

-Snap!-

Looking up, he saw Sakura-chan sit up rigidly at the sound, kunai in hand, turning around slowly.

"A squirrel?" he heard her ask dumbly. "Geez, don't scare me like that!"

The annoyed expression changed into one of desperation, and the kunai was thrown.

"Hehe," chuckled a cruel voice from out of his line of sight. "Up all night? But it's no longer necessary. Wake up Sasuke-kun, we want to fight him."

"Wha-" Sakura stammered as she reached for another kunai in her weapons-pouch. "What are you talking about? I know someone called Orochimaru is pulling the strings from the shadows! What is his purpose? What is this weird mark on Sasuke-kun's neck? You did this to him … and now you want to fight?"

"Hmm," started the same male voice. "I wonder what that man is thinking …"

"But hearing that, we can't let you go," stated another voice. "I'll kill this girl, and I'll also kill this Sasuke guy."

"Wait, Zaku," interrupted the first voice.

"Huh? Why?"

"You're not very good," commented the voice, clearly not addressing Zaku. Scraping in dirt followed. "A recently overturned stone, different coloured earth. Grass doesn't grow here …" Sakura gurgled. "A booby trap … is pointless unless it goes unnoticed."

"Pft, stupid," scoffed Zaku. "So that kunai was to prevent the squirrel from setting off the trap."

"Well," continued the first voice. "Since we have no use for this girl … _kill her_."

He couldn't see Sakura's expression, but her hand moved with the kunai, and a twang was heard as a taut wire was cut.

A shadow rapidly descended into view, revealing a giant log swinging like a pendulum.

He tried to smile in pride at Sakura's trap, but his face wasn't cooperating, and the fading soreness of his stomach prevented him from doing anything but wince.

An explosion made him look back outside, seeing the three Sound nin that had threatened them just before the First part of the Exam began, in the air from a jump … and a heavy rain of splinters.

"Frankly speaking," stated the one with a fur coat. He was eerily calm as he spoke … as though they had not just been nearly crushed. "You have no talent. People like you have to work harder. A weakling like you shouldn't mess with guys like us."

By now they had landed, so he couldn't see them with Sasuke in the way, but their footsteps were clearly heard, which went to show that they weren't trying to be sneaky. They were confident in their own victory.

"KONOHA SENPUU!"

An unidentified fighter intruded on the situation, and the attack must have succeeded, as the sound of skidding could be heard.

Just outside the hollow, he could see a head of bowl-cut, black hair that could only belong to one ninja within this area … Rock Lee … _'How do I know that boy? And did I just think of them all as ninja? Of course we are … I'm one myself, right? I graduated from the Ninja Academy only a couple of months ago, at the bottom of my class … I was only accepted as a ninja because I saved Iruka-sensei by beating the snot out of Mizuki-sensei who tried to kill us both, and I learned a technique called the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, which splits me into solid clones … was it all a dream?'_

"Then, you guys should also work harder," stated Lee mockingly.

He could see something brown and bushy on Fuzzy-brow's shoulder, but being unable to move, couldn't shift to find out what it was.

"Who are you?" asked the voice of the ninja with the furry coat and bandaged face.

"I am the Beautiful Green Beast of Konohagakure … Rock Lee!" Fuzzy-brows replied confidently.

"W-why are you here?" asked Sakura timidly.

"I will always appear when you are in trouble," Fuzzy-brows declared. He then bowed down with something and got back up without the brown and bushy thing on his shoulder. "Hehe, it's actually thanks to you, now go …" he said, but there was the feeling that the boy wasn't speaking to Sakura or the Sound nin.

A tense moment of silence followed.

He tried to move, but only managed to raise his head for a moment before it fell back down. '_Why would my stomach ache dully for so long after being hit? Normally, the pain would be over by now … did he hit me more times than one? After all, I used to do something like that to Ryoga, so why wouldn't the snake bastard know how to do it as well, when he's clearly a better fighter? Wait, who's Ryoga? And why do I see black piglets with tiger-striped bandanas around their necks every time I think of the name?'_

There was movement just above his head, and he saw a squirrel looking down at him … was this the bushy companion of Fuzzy-brows? What was a squirrel doing in the Forest of Death, anyway?

He managed to slowly raise his hand to the creature, and it sniffed it curiously before grabbing his finger and experimentally bit it, causing no pain, but the taste was clearly not to its satisfaction, so no more attempts were made to repeat the nibble.

A rumbling and tearing sound from the outside broke him from his observation and attempts at moving properly. Looking outside, he saw Fuzzy-brows holding one of the giant roots of a tree.

_'That thing is as thick as that giant snake that swallowed me before I caught up with Sasuke-teme and Sakura-chan when they fought against the snake-bastard!'_

The root blocked the incoming Sound nin that had made Kabuto-kun vomit from a strike that never connected.

"There's some trick to your attacks, right?" asked Lee, holding the ripped-out root more or less over his head. "I'm not simply going to dodge it, since I've seen your attacks before …"

The root was tossed aside, and Lee started unravelling the bandages on his hands.

He saw Lee duck, then disappear, only to reappear under the charging Sound nin, leg extended in a kick that connected with the teen's chin and sent him flying into the air. Lee reappeared behind the ninja and the bandages from his arms wrapped themselves around his opponent as they reached the apex and started plummeting.

"Take this!" Lee bellowed as they started spinning. "Omote Renge!"

Dust kicked into the air, and made it temporarily impossible to see.

He sighed and tried to sit up, only to fall back down.

_'Why am I having so much trouble moving? I didn't get any injuries bad enough to give me this kind of mobility problem.'_

"No way!"

Lee's exclamation made him force his head off the ground to see … the Sound nin had survived the attack, and was buried to his chest in soft dirt … and he was upside down.

Dropping back onto the ground, he started a self-examination, which did not require the use of limbs or eyes.

_'There are no broken limbs … no pulled muscles … no foreign objects in his body … no bruises or cuts … no physical reason why I shouldn't be able to move properly … _

_'Wait a moment, how do I know how to do something like that? As far as I know, only the Hyuuga are able to see such things without undressing their patients … Why am I wondering about that? I learned to do this after killing Saffron, Cologne taught me … Why am I suddenly under the impression that I have been taught something from an article of toiletry?'_

"Lee-san!"

Sakura-chan's exclamation brought him out of his confused musing.

He looked to see Fuzzy-brows collapsing to his knees.

"There's a little trick here," gloated the bandaged Sound nin and brandished his right arm, revealing a metal contraption with several holes running all along the forearm, like a form of bracer. "You can't just dodge my attacks."

Sakura made a sound of question as she looked between the prone form of her saviour and their attackers.

"It's sound," the ninja explained smugly. "Even if you dodge my fist, sound will attack you. Do you know what sound actually is?"

"Vibration …" Sakura muttered in realisation.

"Exactly," confirmed the Sound nin. "Hearing sound means that your eardrums are catching the shaking air … the human eardrum will break by sounds exceeding 150 MHz … and deeper in the ear lies the inner ear membrane. When this is damaged, you lose your balance. Heh, you won't be able to move your body as you wish for a while."

Examining himself again, he found that his inner ear was not injured as he had started to believe from what he heard … _'Kuso …'_

"Lame old Taijutsu won't work against us," added Zaku from out of sight.

Lee grunted as he held his bleeding ear.

"Well, you were doing well …" Zaku commented. "You forced me to use my Jutsu … of course you failed. I can freely control supersonic sound waves and air pressure," something clicked in his mind … _'The Hiryu Shoten Ha! This sounds like the technique the old ghoul taught me!' _"I have the power to destroy even a rock," flashing images of a boy wearing a striped bandana jabbing his finger into a rock and making it explode came to mind. "Blasting air into the earth and creating a cushion is nothing." _'I have to try harder … can't just lie about all day … my friends are in danger, and need me!' _"Ours are different from your stupid techniques."

Focusing every ounce of concentration he had, he managed to shove himself back a few inches, leaning his shoulders on an elevated part of the hollow and allowing him to see the one with bandages hiding his face charge in for the kill.

Lee was not as cooperative as the Sound nin would have liked, and somehow, despite having a ruptured inner ear, managed to veer out of the way, and to the surprise of everyone, started an attack.

"KONOHA SENPUU!"

However, the attack never finished, as the injury caught up with him, causing the Sound nin to block the incoming leg, and charge in with his special attack, which Lee, in his sluggish and unfocused state, had no choice but to block with his forearms.

"THIS ARM MULTIPLIES THE SMALL SOUNDS PRODUCED TO THEIR ULTIMATE LEVEL," bellowed the Sound nin over the noise of his own attack. "YOU COULD SAY IT'S A SPEAKER!"

Distortions moved from the holes on the gauntlet of the Sound nin and headed for Lee's left ear.

"BUT THE SOUND DOESN'T FOLLOW THE DIRECTION OF THE ARM! I USE MY CHAKRA TO MAKE SURE IT ALWAYS ATTACKS MY PREY!"

_'Chakra, where have I heard that before? Chakra is the combined energy produced by spirit and body, all ninja and some samurai use it to perform attacks and enhance their abilities … wait, isn't that what ki is for? Ki is the energy of the spirit … but that's only one half of the equation, to have chakra, one needed to mix body energy with it … I've done so for at least a few years now, starting at the Academy … but I've used ki to enhance my abilities and for my techniques for years also …'_

Sudden movements in his line of vision snapped him from his inner argument with himself to see Sakura throw a handful of shuriken at the bandaged Sound nin.

Before the throwing stars could reach their intended target, Zaku appeared in the way, and released a strong gust of air at them, blasting the shuriken back, only narrowly missing the two boys in the hollow.

The girl Sound nin appeared behind Sakura, and got a strong grip on her hair.

"Much more lustre than me …" the elder girl commented mockingly. "Pft, trying to be a sexy ninja? If you have time to treat your hair, then you have time to train, you female swine! Zaku, kill that Sasuke guy in front of this boy-chaser's eyes … let's teach this one a lesson!"

He watched in tense silence as Sakura and Lee struggled …_'If I could only move properly!'_

Steam started rising from Sasuke-teme's neck … the bite mark given by Orochimaru reeked of bad energy, corruption … _'Why did I feel that? I wasn't able to distinguish the feel of energy before, was I?'_

"Useless," the female Sound nin remarked, making him look to see Sakura having gotten a kunai in her hand. "That won't work against me."

"What are you talking about?" Sakura asked smugly, and swung her kunai in an upwards arch, creating a tearing sound, and causing the Sound nin girl to stumble backwards.

_'She cut her hair … the thing Sakura-chan loves the most about herself … she cut it to get loose! _

_'I miss my pigtail … wait, I never had a pigtail! What's going on here?'_

"Kin!" yelled Zaku. "Kill her!"

_'Why am I remembering things I've never done? Why do I remember places I've never been? Why am I remembering strange things I've never seen? Strange tastes he I've never had in my mouth, training he I've never taken and why did do I suddenly feel like yelling out that I'm the best? Why do I want a cup of ramen noodles?'_

"Let go of me!" he looked back outside to see Sakura imitating a bulldog with Zaku's arm, having taken a big bite out of it, and refusing to let go even as Zaku struck her repeatedly. "Damn it! Let go!"

Seeing the girl he had a crush on for a long time getting hurt stirred a fire in him … _'That's it!'_

Mustering all his willpower, he managed to push himself a little further up the root wall behind him.

Sasuke-teme was moaning, and the evil energy grew in intensity.

He managed to push himself up a little more.

Sakura-chan finally let go of Zaku's arm and fell to the ground.

_'Just a little more and I'll be standing!'_

"You brat!" roared Zaku as he aimed his hands at her … all attention was on the two.

_'Just a little more!'_

Suddenly appearing between Zaku and Sakura-chan were Ino, Shikamaru and Choji, the last being dragged by his scarf and clearly not completely voluntarily participating in the actions his team mates had planned. They were facing the Sound nin.

_'There! I'm up!'_

"Pft," scoffed Zaku. "More weirdoes have appeared …"

_'My body feels like lead …'_

"Sakura," started Ino confidently. "I won't lose to you, I've already told you that! I won't let you be the only one to look good in front of Sasuke-kun."

"Looks like more Leaf insects have scurried into the open," commented the bandaged Sound nin.

_'Now I have to get moving … damn you legs! MOVE!'_

"What are you two thinking?" demanded Choji desperately. "These guys are too dangerous, we'll be eaten! Shikamaru, let go of my scarf!"

"Yeah, right, idiot!" returned Shikamaru, no more confident than Choji, but being there was not his choice either, it would seem. "This sucks, but we have no choice! If Ino is coming out, then we men can't run away!"

_'Okay, one foot in front of the other … oops!' _he caught the root as he was about to fall, and managed to keep himself up.

"I'm sorry to get you guys involved," Ino added. "But we are a team, and we share the same destiny."

"We'll get through this somehow," Shikamaru sighed.

_'Okay, balance is a little off … must be that I'm shorter than I was before … I'm not short! I'm a growing boy! Oh, give it up, and start working on returning to normal and start helping Sakura-chan!'_

"You can leave if you want," Zaku smirked. "Fatty."

Choji stiffened at the insult.

"What did he say?" asked the rotund preteen boy coolly. "I couldn't hear him."

_'Okay, one step, balance is still holding …'_

"If you want to," said Zaku. "You can run away, _fatass_!"

_'Great! I'm getting it! I can walk! I can walk!'_

"I AM NOT A FATASS!" bellowed Choji angrily in denial. "I'M JUST CHUBBY, DAMN IT! YAAAAY! HURRAY FOR CHUBBY PEOPLE! ALRIGHT! THIS IS A WAR BETWEEN THE SOUND AND THE LEAF!"

"Man," groaned Shikamaru, not noticing that the ruckus had broken the blonde boy out of his concentration, causing him to fall back to the ground almost exactly where he had been upon waking up. "This is going to suck …"

_'Ow.'_

"That's our line," growled Zaku.

"Sakura," stated Ino. "Take care of those two … Alright! Time for Ino Team's full power! Yeah!"

_'Damn, I had it! I was walking around!'_

Getting to his feet wasn't quite as difficult this time, but the restricting clothes he wore made movements excessively clumsy.

_'Might as well take off the jacket … it's too restrictive. No! I got that jacket for my birthday! I ain't takin' it off! Oh, yes I will! No! I'm not suggesting I'll throw it away! I'll still wear it when I'm not in a dangerous situation!'_

Not finding himself objecting any more to his own suggestion, he wrung the jacket over his head without unzipping it.

The evil energy was leaking off Sasuke-teme in greater amounts … _'And by how much he's moaning, he'll wake up soon … I've got to get into this fight … to give the others a better chance!'_

The sound of a terrible wind broke him from his discussion, to see the Sound nin girl get blasted into a tree by Zaku.

_'How long was I arguing with myself?' _He wondered as he saw the drama unfold.

"Heh, you are confused," Zaku chuckled.

"Our goals are not the stupid scrolls," explained the bandaged Sound nin. "Nor to safely complete this exam … it's Sasuke-kun!"

_'Great, now I've got a headache … I should have just contended myself with lying against the root … then I wouldn't be so confused … reminds me of how the Tendos reacted when Pops and I first showed up at their house … who are the Tendos? And I never had a dad, I'm an orphan! Then how did I travel with him for ten years, learning Martial Arts? I didn't start learning how to fight until I started the Academy, and that was six years ago! I'm only twelve, I couldn't have gone on a ten year training trip! Well, I did … Did not … Did so … Did not, infinity! That's not fair, I was about to say that! Then you agree with me? Argh! Why am I arguing with myself about things that never happened? Because they did, I was there! No I wasn't!'_

"Bah, I can't take any more of this," commented a bored voice from up a tree. "Some minor Sound nins bullying these second rate ninjas and declaring a victory?"

"They keep coming out like cockroaches," snarled Zaku as he looked up at the branch where the voice came from.

_'Great, now I've missed even more!'_

"You made a mistake," stated the voice up the tree. "That knocked out freak right there is from our team, and you're going to pay for that!"

_'Why do I get the feeling I'm being watched? Everyone is looking up the tree at Fuzzy-brows team mate, and Sasuke-teme is still not awake …'_

"If you are going any further, I'm going all out," informed the voice up the tree.

_'Who **is** that?'_

"Hehe," laughed the bandaged Sound nin. "If you don't like it so much, then stop acting cool and come down here …"

"No," replied the voice. "It seems that won't be necessary."

"Sasuke-kun!" exclaimed Sakura-chan excitedly. "You're awake … huh?"

_'Oh, great, now Sasuke-teme is stealing my thunder! When did he wake up! And when did he get tattoos all over the left half of his body? Those aren't tattoos … they are seal marks, like the Ultimate Moxibustion the old pervert performed on me to rob me of all my strength! And the seals are practically overflowing with evil energy! How do I know that? And who is the old pervert? I don't remember anyone stealing all my strength, when did that happen? When I was sixteen, of course! I'm twelve!'_

"Sakura," started Sasuke in a threatening tone. "Who … did that to you?"

"Sasuke-kun?"

"_Who?_"

"We did it!" declared Zaku confidently, while his team mates didn't look quite as self-assured.

"Sasuke-kun," stammered Sakura-chan worriedly, not even noticing her other team mate being up and about. "Your body …"

Sasuke-teme raised his left hand to look at it.

"Don't worry," Sasuke assured confidently. "I feel power overflowing within me … I feel … great."

_'Why is it that I can hardly move after fighting that snake bastard, but Sasuke-teme got up reeking of power? It's not fair! No, I don't want that power … it'll get him killed if he uses it too much … just like Ryoga killed himself in the end after using the Shishi Hokodan too much … the dark emotions will tear at him until no other feeling remains …'_

"ZANKUUKYOKUHA!"

The roar roused him from his thoughts in time to sense the pressures of air rushing towards him.

He didn't know what he did at the time, but suddenly, he found himself mid air, looking down at the funnel of slicing air blasts that tore through the former hollow they had been in, mere feet below him.

Sasuke-teme and Sakura-chan were behind Zaku and the bandaged Sound nin, and only some pale-eyed boy with very pronounced veins around his sockets followed him in his leap from where he was standing on a branch.

_'How did I do that? Why am I wondering about that? I've done stuff like that for months! No I haven't! Of course I have, I just used my ki to propel myself into the air, like a cannon shooting a ball … Am I going crazy? I'd worry more about the landing than possible insanity … the Landing?'_

Looking down, he saw the ground rush up to greet him.

Instinctively, yet not near as graceful as he somehow knew he should have been able to do it, he flipped in the air, and landed on his feet next to Sakura-chan, and stumbled to his knees.

Hearing the sounds of fleshy impact, he looked to see Sasuke-teme casually swat Zaku several metres away before the Sound nin even noticed he was there.

Sasuke-teme went through a quick succession of hand seals. "KATON: HOUSENKA NO JUTSU!"

A series of fireballs were created in Sasuke-teme's mouth, and spat at the Sound nin.

Zaku scoffed at the attempt, and made to blast the fireballs away with his air attack … his efforts were only half-effective. The fires were extinguished, but revealed that there were solid objects within … shuriken. Zaku had not been prepared for this, and was cut in several places.

_'He can make fireballs? Is that even possible for normal mortals? Of course it is, Sasuke-teme uses them all the time! It's his favoured weapon, just like mine is making clones! I can make **clones**_ _of myself? That's great! Saffron wouldn't have stood a chance against me if I knew how to do that! Who's Saffron?'_

"Zaku! Below!" called the bandaged Sound nin in warning.

He looked up to see Sasuke-teme standing over a prone Zaku … the Sound nin's arms were pulled back by Sasuke's hands, and the teme's foot was on the back of Zaku, a dangerous position to be in.

"Hehe, you're proud of these arms?" asked Sasuke-teme mockingly. A swift pull on said appendages and a push on Zaku's back followed.

-Snap!-

"Aaww!" screamed Zaku in pain as he fell limply to the ground, having nothing to break the short fall for him.

As Zaku lay whimpering in agony, Sasuke-teme turned to the bandaged Sound nin.

"You're the only one left," he stated coldly. "I hope you'll let me have more fun …"

_'Sasuke-teme didn't act like this before … He didn't? No, he may have been uncaring, but he wasn't vicious.'_

Apparently, he wasn't the only one to think so, as Saskura-chan demonstrated by launching herself at him in a glomp that could possibly rival Shampoo's.

_'Why do I keep thinking of spices and toiletries?'_

"Stop!" she exclaimed, pleadingly. "Please stop!"

Slowly, the seals covering half of Sasuke-teme's body started receding and the evil energy was contained within the bite mark left by the snake bastard. This was followed by the boy collapsing in Sakura-chan's arms, exhausted.

"You are strong," declared the bandaged Sound nin, and held out the Earth scroll, one very similar to the one their team once had, but that Orochimaru had swallowed. "Sasuke-kun, we can't defeat you at this time. Here is a gift, please let us leave." Depositing the scroll on the ground, the Sound nin went about collecting his fallen comrades. "This may seem convenient, but there is something we must find out now. But I will promise you this … if there is another situation where we meet in this Exam, we will neither run nor hide."

_'What am I, chopped sushi? I'm still good to go, why isn't he afraid of me? Because I can hardly move, and that jump took a lot out of me. Oh, right …'_

As the three Sound nin retreated slowly from the clearing they had all been fighting in, Sakura got a determined look on her face. "Wait!" she called. "Who is Orochimaru? What did he do to Sasuke-kun? Why Sasuke-kun?"

"I don't know," confessed the bandaged Sound nin. "We were only told to kill Sasuke-kun."

_'Good, now the danger is over, and I can start figuring out all of my questions without danger of injury. Where to start … ah, the last thing I remember … eating one of Akane's "onigiri" and getting strong stomach cramps, sweats, seizures and nausea … okay … let's say that happened, when did it happen? I was nineteen, it was the day before our wedding, and she was excited about the event, but not about me … but I am twelve … maybe she got an Aging Mushroom into it by mistake, and I got sent somewhere by one of my rivals? That can't be right, I was born in Konoha on the night the Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked, which is why it was sealed into me while my cut umbilical cord wasn't healed … at least, that's what Oji-san said when we talked about it … but if I was born here, that must mean … I died? Then why am I still alive?'_

"Who _am_ I?" he asked himself, not aware of having asked the question aloud.

"Oy, Shikamaru, it looks like Naruto-kun has amnesia," muttered Choji as he munched on some chips from a freshly opened bag.

-Sigh- "How troublesome …"

-Whack!-

"OW!"

"Ino, why did you hit him over the head?"

"Because that's how you cure amnesia!"

"No, that's how you _cause_ amnesia … how troublesome …"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I know I may have added, rearranged or removed a few things from the dialogue and actions before Ranma makes his presence known, but a few things were either too inaccurate/inconsistent so I took a few liberties … 

Not to mention that during the phase of confusion, contradictory internal questions and statements have, as you may have noticed, sprung up. Some may even have noticed that I avoided naming Ranma or Naruto when he thought of himself, or unless someone else spoke to him.

I apologise for any confusion on my part about the naming of such things as techniques, places, and the arrangement of names, as I might mix them up by mistake … please correct me so I can correct the errors … but please word yourselves politely, as there is little that kills more muses for me than people yelling at me for no good reason … not that I like being yelled at, regardless …

And before people start asking why I placed this story in the Naruto section, then it is because while the main character is Ranma, he is also Naruto, and will be addressed as such by his friends, enemies etc. and the plot takes place in the Narutoverse … all excellent reasons in my own opinion, but others may disagree.

Credits: The inspiration for this story came from reading "Wild Cherry Blossom" by Largo, and "Horse of the Leaf" by Hibiki54. My thanks to all of those that responded to my idea thread in the Naruto section on The Fanfiction Forum, you helped iron out some details that I myself had not finished. I apologise to those whose suggestions were not immediately included, but some may be included later …


	2. Chapter 1

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Time marched on for Team Seven, even in the Forest of Death.

"BANZAI!" a blonde-haired boy dove off a cliff into the river below, wearing only a set of dark green shorts with some squiggly yellow vines curling around on them.

This blonde boy, with whisker-like marks on each cheek, was none other than Uzumaki Naruto, or at least he had believed as much for as long as he had conscious thought.

Only a few days earlier, he had been convinced otherwise by memories of a different life popping into his mind.

He had yet to come completely to terms with this, as for all he knew, it could all be part of some elaborate Genjutsu meant to lure him into despair, confusion and madness.

According to his new memories, he was also Saotome Ranma, Master Martial Artist, who apparently died at age nineteen due to his fiancée's horrible cooking skills. After getting these new memories, Naruto had felt sluggish and more aware of how physically slow and weak he was – this was something he had previously ignored, and tried to compensate for by acting brash and confident. Now, he was aware of his faults and knew several ways to remedy them – the only problem was that it would take time, something he didn't have a lot of at the moment.

-Ker-sploosh!-

Though his team mates were aware of his internal conflict, Sasuke, the only survivor of the Uchiha massacre, had commanded him into doing menial tasks as though he was the boss – which he wasn't! The only reason Naruto hadn't outright refused to obey orders, was that he was outvoted by Sakura casting her vote in favour of Sasuke's idea.

That was how Naruto found himself submerged under water, with a small school of plump fish dead ahead.

Doing as instructed, Naruto swam towards them and made violent movements. _'This reminds me somewhat of my training in the Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken,'_ commented his new self as he loomed ever closer to the aquatic vertebrates. _'Or at least the method I figured it out in the end.'_

Images of a veritable stream goldfish being flipped out of the tank with a small hoop covered in flimsy paper popped into his head, and Naruto couldn't help but smile as he managed to slap one fish above the surface while its brethren leaped out to escape the disturbance.

Shadows could be seen through the water as the fish disappeared from where they had been, and very dull thuds could be heard as the fish impacted against trees on the side of the river, likely with a kunai in each to keep them in place and dead.

_'I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!'_ Naruto thought as he spotted another few fish that had escaped his scare. _'But those will do just fine!'_

Sasuke had suggested he use Kage Bunshin to make the job easier, but frankly, Naruto felt that wasting so much energy in a hostile environment such as this was very dangerous, should an observant enemy spot his exhaustion. Besides, he had barely gotten over the stiffness and aches from awaking over the past couple of days, and hadn't gotten much time to try his hand at techniques.

That was another thing that now felt wrong about this place: No one seemed to truly practice their hand-to-hand skills. Sure, a lot of ninja appeared in excellent condition and had good fighting skills, but to his knowledge, no one performed kata to break in a new style or keep an old one alive – No one believed that being skilled in taijutsu required constant work, assuming that if they had a talent for it, the talent would remain a constant, and if they lacked the skill, they avoided fighting with it instead of learning!

After gaining his new memories, Naruto recognised how flawed his fighting style had been – sure, he apparently had stamina enough to outlast several chuunin, and could heal from just about anything with a good night's sleep, but rushing in without thought for anything but trying to get in one strike now and again, while outlasting his opponents was not a sound strategy. Naruto blamed this partly on his instructors at the Ninja Academy – their bias against him because of the demon he contained kept them from teaching him well in any of their lessons, which was why he had likely not passed the two first Exams he had taken before the incident that led to him learning the Kage Bunshin from a scroll.

The incident in question was more than enough proof to Naruto that he was not necessarily at fault for not learning everything he was taught – after all, he had almost mastered a Sealed technique in mere hours with no one around to provide any help or instruction!

However, he recognised that he was _partly_ to blame for not learning, as the cold treatment he got would make him feel more like humiliating them with pranks for being that way. Had he grit his teeth, ignored his treatment and focused, he would have at least have been among the top five of his class, along with Sasuke, Sakura, Shikamaru and Shino, instead of the proclaimed dead-last that everyone made fun of and expected screw-ups from.

Though he didn't show it, Naruto was well aware of the danger they were in simply by being in the Chuunin Exams, and as such, he didn't want to end up in a similar situation to what they did a few days ago when he awoke feeling like someone else.

There had been a brief moment after being struck on the head by Ino that he feared the Fox was trying to break out of the Seal, and was feeding false memories into his head to distract him from those dastardly deeds, but that idea was extinguished when he saw the additional markings around the Seal on his stomach.

-Growl!-

Speaking of his stomach, it was now demanding to be fed, and that coincidentally scared away the fat fish he had been slowly creeping up on.

Damn, two fish each wouldn't be enough to fully sate his hunger, and now he'd scared away the biggest fish he had seen in that river.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura's voice called from the camp only a few metres away from where Sasuke stood by the banks of the river. "Could you light the fire with a fire ball?"

_'What did I ever see in her? She's as uncute as Akane.'_ Naruto found himself thinking before shaking it off. _'Quit doing that! She is not uncute!'_

_'She's very un-uncute!'_

"Oy, dobe, get out of the water and retrieve the fish if you want to eat," Sasuke called in the same, bored tone he normally spoke in.

If that kid wasn't on his team, Naruto would have gladly taken it upon himself to sweep the streets of Konohagakure with him, as well as unclogging a few stopped up toilets with his head – that oh-so-superior attitude was very infuriating.

_'But he's got the Sharingan, he could copy and counter everything I do,'_ Naruto realised as he waded waist-deep in cool water to get the fish he had scared out of the water.

_'That's where one of the main tenets of the Anything Goes comes in, adapting to an opponent and figuring out their weaknesses to produce a counter! Those eyes of his has to have some kind of weakness … the most glaring one would be the energy required to maintain the special vision, so while it isn't a good idea, keeping him from needing to shut down his Sharingan would exhaust him much quicker than if he had fought without it.'_

"Naruto!" Sakura called, clearly annoyed. "Hurry up! Sasuke-kun already started a fire!"

_'And what did **she** do if she didn't prepare a fire? She's had well over an hour while Sasuke and I got the fish!'_ Naruto suddenly found himself thinking. _'Hey, stop being mean to Sakura-chan!'_

"Hurry, Naruto! Sasuke-kun looks hungry!"

"Witch," Naruto muttered under his breath before slapping his hands to his mouth in shock. He'd just insulted the love of his life! _'At least I censored it …'_

_'I really need to stop this, I'm starting to lose my mind …'_

_'What little I had to begin with …'_

_'HEY!'_

Picking the fish up from the ground, where they had fallen from his arms while he berated himself for being mean to Sakura, Naruto sat down next to the fire, where Sakura produced the efforts of her day: Sticks to spear the fish and grill them with. _'Ooooh, what a challenge! I can see why she didn't join us in getting the fish out of the river! All Hail the Mighty Bringer of Sticks! Queen over us lowly mortals!'_

_'Since when did I start using sarcasm?'_ Naruto wondered, scratching his head as he tried to decide which fish would best suit his needs for starters. _'And Sakura-chan couldn't help, because she didn't bring a bathing suit!'_

_'Right, and I'm really the God of War trapped in a human body, forced to live as a mortal to humble myself every now and again so I won't abuse my powers!'_

_'I am?'_

_'I thought I'd recognise sarcasm when I heard it … guess I'm not as bright as I thought.'_

"HEY!"

"What is it, dobe?" asked Sasuke, annoyed as he bit a crispy chunk out of the finished fish he had just selected.

Realising he had said that aloud, Naruto desperately looked around for something worthy of his exclamation. Finally, after a tense three seconds, he found it. "I wanted that fish," he pouted and tried his best to sound like he was really upset that someone had taken it.

The ruse seemed to work, as suspicion was immediately replaced with resignation. The exclamation and reason appeared to fit his "dobe" persona enough for them to accept it and move on.

Doing his best to appear sulking as he took a fish, making sure to mutter about it being a little smaller than the one he had said he wanted, Naruto listened silently to his team mates discussing their situation.

"We only have around twenty four hours left," Sasuke stated.

There was a tense silence, apart from the rustling of wind in the trees, the rush of the river and the crackle of fire. "You know, there may not be any more Heaven Scrolls," Sakura hesitantly pointed out.

"What do you mean?" asked Sasuke. Naruto kept from inputting his opinion on the statement by biting into his fish. _'Why did I suddenly feel like telling Sakura-chan "Thanks for stating the obvious"?'_

"Because it's the fourth day of a five-day test," Sakura explained. "That means that eighty percent of the test is over. There are seventy-eight entrants, twenty-six teams and only thirteen of each scroll … so only thirteen teams could pass, at best. And I assume you guys haven't forgotten what that Orochimaru guy did to our Heaven Scroll … That means that the number of teams to pass went down by one … and we can't be sure that the rest of the scrolls are intact. If one of the scrolls is destroyed, the other half is useless."

A heavy silence fell over the clearing that had become the camp for team seven as they all tried to figure out their standing.

Finally, after several moments, Sasuke spoke up, as though he was the leader of the group.

"Since we left our Leaf comrades, we've needed two days to heal our injuries," at this he glanced at Naruto, who had used much of the time lounging around for no apparent reason, speaking to himself in hushed tones. Sasuke clearly didn't want to admit that he had also suffered some injuries, and that the cursed seal was tempting him to use power, tempting him to gain it, and that it took a great deal of willpower to overcome the desires that came from it. Through Ranma, however, Naruto knew of Sasuke's struggle even if he didn't feel pity for him. "We need to be more active now. Either way, the next enemy is our last chance! I'm going to get some water …"

Groaning in annoyance, Naruto decided to figure out a strategy to fit their task and skills. He knew he had a blank scroll he could use somewhere in his utility pouch … thankfully the container was not far from the spot he had chosen around the fire, and he soon had one of his blank scrolls in hand. For a moment, he noted how remarkably similar this blank scroll was to the Earth scroll, then he started to unpeel the paper from where it was stuck against the side.

However, that was as far as he got, because a larger hand than his own gripped the scroll and the hand that held it.

Somewhat surprised, Naruto followed the arm the hand was attached to, and found a teen boy with silver grey hair and glasses at the end.

It was Kabuto.

This was the young man that had been friendly enough with them, during the moments before the First Exam, to share some information with them regarding one or two of the Genin they were likely to face.

_'I don't trust him,'_ his new part proclaimed. _'He's being too helpful, and there's just something **false** about him, like Nabiki trying to gain someone's trust by acting hurt and afraid.'_

Naruto was by now starting to get used to the random and unknown persons his new self brought up, so he didn't bother asking about the girl whose image flashed in his mind as she was mentioned.

"What are you doing?" asked Naruto, trying to keep the sudden distrust from his voice.

"Did you forget the rules?" asked Kabuto as he stood from the crouch he had been in. "You're not supposed to open your scroll."

"Naruto!" Sakura roared as she reached the same conclusion Kabuto had. "You could have disqualified us all!"

"What are you talking about?" Naruto demanded as Sasuke wandered out from behind a rock. "I was only trying to-"

"-Have a peek to see what the scroll said?" Sasuke suggested, interrupting Naruto's explanation. "Are you really that reckless? Would you put your own curiosity before the good of the team? If so, you don't have what it takes to become a Chuunin."

"Baka!" Sakura added and bonked the blonde boy on the head.

_'This almost feels like I'm back in Nerima,'_ the part of his mind called Ranma commented. _'I had uncute tomboys jump to conclusions and hit me over the head back there as well.'_

"I wasn't going to open the Earth Scroll!" Naruto exclaimed, waving everyone away so he could get some breathing space, not realising that he had failed to protest to Ranma's comment about Sakura being an uncute tomboy.

"Then how do you explain the scroll in your hand?" Sasuke asked, raising a brow in doubt.

"This is a blank scroll!" Naruto replied heatedly. "I was going to write down ideas!"

"What for?"

"Er …" _'There's no way they'll buy strategy and summary of resources,'_ commented the Ranma personality. "Techniques I want Kakashi-sensei to teach me … I've been slacking off a little since I became a Genin …" _'Hey, that's not a bad idea, we should write down techniques we want to learn!'_ "Besides, the Earth Scroll is still in my utility pouch!"

* * *

It was five minutes later that the group of four was found leaping from tree branch to tree branch away from the camp. No one had apologised to Naruto for their mistake, for which Naruto was still miffed about, but Kabuto had pointed out that the smoke and smell of their fire and food would have attracted unwanted guests, so it was high time to leave.

Naruto had since they packed their things felt like he was being watched. Or rather, the Ranma part of him had alerted him to it, and somehow managed to limit his reaction to a slight twitch of his hand instead of the loud, screaming attacks he would normally have reacted with.

While the others were discussing the remaining enemies in the test, Naruto was focusing on their surroundings, as per the urgings of his new self. They were followed by three others – what method his new self used to determine that number and their position remained a mystery to Naruto, but he was grateful for it, as it meant they couldn't perform a sneak attack on him.

So absorbed was he in keeping track of their enemies, that Naruto barely managed to find out the others had stopped on a large branch. He had to employ an instinctual tree-walking technique on the branch to keep his momentum from tripping him up and sending him careening into the underbrush below.

"-We must be careful from here on out," finished Kabuto seriously as they stared at the tower rising in the distance.

Naruto would have asked for a summary of what they had been speaking of, if he hadn't felt something move that hadn't done so earlier.

Before he could stop himself, a kunai had been drawn and thrown by his hand.

A wet crunch sounded, followed immediately by the dull thud of metal being buried in wood.

Turning around, the group found the kunai impaled through the head of a twenty metre long centipede that had been crawling up the tree behind them.

"Damn, wasted a kunai on a stinkin' bug," Naruto muttered in disappointment.

"Naruto-kun," Kabuto started sternly. "I'd like us to avoid unnecessary actions and noises from here on. Moving through the forest like an elephant will only tip off our enemies, and they will not have a fun welcome party planned for us."

"Hey, you're the ones making noise," Naruto hissed to limit the amount of noise made. "I just killed a giant bug that was closing in on us! Do you think Sakura-chan would have been quiet if that thing had come close enough to touch her with its feelers? No, she'd have screamed!"

Actually, Naruto had no real reason for throwing his kunai, other than a perceived threat, the fact that it prevented Sakura from having a panic attack and scream was only thought of as Kabuto was lecturing him.

"Regardless," Kabuto sighed, finding no real fault in Naruto's reasoning. "We need to move as slowly and safely as time allows."

"Fine," Naruto huffed. As they started walking, however, he felt something settle over them. He couldn't tell what, just that something was wrong, and that tracking the three enemies had become more difficult, as though they were being masked by something. "What's this?" he asked Kabuto suspiciously, causing the elder teen to falter momentarily. "Feels like someone blanketed my senses with fake ones …"

Kabuto stopped fully, and looked around. What he was looking for, Naruto didn't know, but the three enemies suddenly seemed tense.

"It's nothing," Kabuto brushed off and jumped down to the ground. Naruto's team mates listened to the elder and more experienced ninja and followed him.

Naruto, made to do the same, but used a crude replacement technique with his jacket wrapped around a log to mask his disappearance for a moment.

The enemy was playing unfairly, so it was time he started doing the same, his Ranma personality urged him.

As he slowly crawled along the tree trunks towards the hiding places of the three enemies, Naruto felt his group panic as they discovered that instead of Naruto following them, a log with his bright, orange jacket had fallen to the ground in his place. The enemy was also confused about this, but couldn't find him for some reason.

_'The Way of the Sneaky Thief,'_ Ranma sounded in his head. _'Learned it a few years before I died. It allows me to become insignificant to people's attention, which makes it very difficult to find me unless they are trained in seeking out specific people by the feel of their aura, which I'm willing to bet none of my team and the enemy is capable of. Heck, I can only distinguish some people from others depending on how well I know them.'_

_'I was a thief?'_ Naruto wondered as he spotted the ghostly sight of one enemy hiding on a branch. The young man had a cream-white body suit, and a breathing mask covering his face. Over his forehead was a forehead protector with the symbol of Rain on it. And across his face, covering one eye, was a mask of some sort.

_'Not really,'_ corrected Ranma. _'It was only the name of the technique … though I could have been a great one if I tried!'_

Sneaking closer, Naruto moved to pull out his kunai, but was stopped by Ranma.

_'No need,'_ he said, and made his hands dart out quickly and silently, striking several points along the Rain-Nin's spine. While Naruto was immensely impressed at his prowess, as the ninja slumped to the branch with a silent scream and in plenty of agony, Ranma complained loudly inside. _'Damn, I'm slow! I remember pulling off two hundred punches in a second before I died … now I only managed three! And our accuracy is exceedingly sloppy! We're just lucky I aimed for pressure spots with wide areas! Man, dying really sucks!'_

The information of the past life skill caused Naruto to feel cheated as well, but he didn't complain. He had two more enemies to go.

Before he did, however, he noticed that the breathing mask was on the verge of falling off.

_'Should I?'_ Naruto asked himself.

_'Why not?'_ Ranma replied. _'He would probably have taken something he wanted from us if he had the chance. Hey, check him for the Heaven Scroll, while we're at it!'_

_'Yeah, why not?'_ Naruto agreed. There wasn't much of an argument against the voice in his head, so he started rummaging through the Rain-nin's things and supplies.

By the time Naruto slipped away, the Rain-nin was lacking all his kunai and shuriken, the breathing mask, one utility pouch, some exploding notes and soldier pills. Naruto was very satisfied, he had never been able to get good quality items such as the ones he had stolen, because every time he was getting supplies, they had conveniently run out of the good stuff and only had the substandard, cheap ninja tools. And he hadn't ever needed exploding notes or soldier pills, but they covered their use in the Ninja Academy, so he wasn't entirely lost as to what purpose they served.

The second ninja was a little more difficult to approach, as he seemed suspicious about something, likely the lack of proper response from his downed team mate. Using the same method against this one was a little harder, and took longer to get into position, but after the boy was paralysed in pain, Naruto searched his equipment to better his own supply. This one didn't have the Heaven Scroll, either - most disappointing. But that left only one left to carry the scroll, and there was a fifty good chance that this team carried the Heaven Scroll – hopefully, the reason they were following his team, was that they needed the Earth Scroll, and had heard they had it back at the camp where he had first detected their presence.

Contrary to what people may have believed, Naruto wasn't stupid, but he wasn't the brightest either – he simply chose to see the positive side of things, and hope they turned out okay.

The third ninja was very difficult to find, as he had definitely figured out something was afoot.

It took a brief moment of distraction when Sakura defied Kabuto's advice and called for Naruto to make the last Rain-nin loosen his control over his presence, allowing Naruto's new self to track him down.

Deciding to try his hand at variety, Naruto was inspired by a memory from the "survival test" Team Seven had been given.

After a few arrangements, Naruto appeared behind the Rain-nin, and gave the surprised boy a shove that sent him careening towards the ground more than a hundred metres down. Being unprepared for the sudden descent, the Rain-nin could do nothing but brace for impact, something that from that altitude would do very little when landing head first.

-Twang!-

A sudden jerk at the Rain-nin's feet halted his momentum mere inches before his face had a meeting with the ground.

"Hah! You _fell_ for it!" Naruto crowed as he let himself slide down the ninja wire he had tied around the Rain-nin's feet prior to shoving him off the tree. "You should have seen your face when you realised I was behind you!" he added in a laugh as he landed with a thump on the ground. "It was hilarious!"

"You only got lucky," the Rain-nin growled through his breathing mask, adding emphasis to the word "Lucky" as he made to escape his restraints.

Still grinning like a maniac, Naruto uttered an unconvincing "oops!" before letting his hand slip and cut the wire with the kunai he just _happened_ to be holding.

The ninja, unprepared for the force of gravity, landed on his head, leaving him open to an attack, something Naruto capitalised on with a solid kick to the abdomen, sending the Rain-nin crashing into a tree.

Looking down at his leg in surprise, Naruto wondered how on Earth he managed to get that much force behind his kick.

_'The advantages of ki control,'_ Ranma commented. _'It enhances performance and strength … unfortunately, I just spent what little I could build up over the last few days on the sneaking and kick, so we have to rely on Chakra for now. We should really start training to build up a reserve and control …'_

_'What's the difference between Chakra and ki?'_ Naruto wondered.

_'Chakra is a mix between body energy and spiritual energy,'_ Ranma recited from what Naruto had been told several times already. _'Ki is pure spiritual energy … something we have surprisingly little of, I might add, considering how much Chakra we use every day of training … no matter, we'll soon build up our reserves, and with any luck, our Chakra control will improve with a more even mix between the two energies!'_

"Naruto!" an enraged Sakura bellowed mere moments before a fist hit the addressed boy on the head. "Where did you disappear to? Don't you know there are dangerous people around?"

"Like that one?" Naruto asked, rubbing his sore head with one hand and pointing at the unconscious Rain-nin with the other.

"Wha-"

"I got them all!" Naruto couldn't help but brag, the pain from Sakura's hit forgotten. "And now it's time to restock my supplies!"

With an excited hum, Naruto was rummaging through the Rain-nin's pouches before Sakura could protest, and just as Sasuke and Kabuto came into view.

"Great! I needed more wire!" Naruto cackled as he transferred the mentioned object from the enemy's utility pouch to his own. "And here's the Scroll! It's a Heaven Scroll!" he added with a victorious crow.

-Bonk!-

"Quiet! Do you want the whole world to know?" Sakura demanded, and snatched the scroll from Naruto's hands to verify his claim.

"Very good, Naruto-kun," Kabuto complimented as he examined the downed Rain-nin. "Have you found the others?"

"They don't matter," Naruto brushed off. "We've got the Scrolls, and have enough time to get to the tower, so let's get moving and win this thing!"

* * *

After an hour of walking, the group finally arrived at the base of the tower located in the exact centre of the Forest of Death – their destination.

Around the entire structure, which looked somewhat derelict from the outside, doors could be seen. Many had notes pasted on the middle as a form of seal, with the team numbers of those teams participating in the Chuunin Exam's second part. Others had been broken, a sign that the team corresponding with the note had finished. As luck would have it, the group came out just in front of the door designated for Team Seven of Konoha.

"Thank you for your assistance, Kabuto-kun," Sakura gushed in gratitude, ignoring Naruto who felt insulted at the insinuation that Kabuto had done more than he had. The only thing Kabuto had done, was warn them about the others and tag along!

_'It's sad, but true,'_ commented Ranma. _'Those who deserve praise seldom get it, and true geniuses are never appreciated in their own time …'_

Huffing in offence at Sakura's actions and words, Naruto tore open the doors, breaking the seals, and entered, ignoring the silver-haired teen, who was saying his good-byes to Sakura and Sasuke as his own team mates met up with him.

When Sasuke and Sakura finally entered they found Naruto searching the empty room from top to bottom for any sign of someone meeting them to recognise that they were on time.

"Where is he?" Naruto asked. "Someone should have been here to meet us!"

"Maybe they're busy, dobe," Sasuke suggested. "We only broke the seal a few moments ago."

"Hey," Sakura interrupted, pointing to the middle of the wall. "Look at this!"

Hanging on the wall was a verse of some kind.

"What the hell does this mean?" Naruto asked bluntly.

"There are some words missing," Sakura pointed out. "This is probably about the scrolls … I think we're supposed to open them!"

A tense moment passed as Sakura took out the Heaven Scroll, and Naruto took out the Earth Scroll.

Tearing up a corner of each scroll from where it was attached to the mass, Naruto and Sakura opened the scrolls more or less simultaneously.

In the middle of each scroll was the kanji for "person" surrounded by several groups of nearly illegible squiggles that Naruto recognised from the very brief time they covered summoning and sealing at the Academy. It was Ranma, who noticed a gathering of energy within the two scrolls, and in chorus with Sasuke, told Naruto to drop the scroll and step back.

Naruto and Sakura both tossed the scrolls away and the rolls of paper had barely touched the ground before smoke rose from it in a near explosive manner.

In the midst of the cloud of white smoke, a shadow appeared where the scrolls had crossed paper with each other.

Immediately, Naruto was on high alert – it could be another test, and he wasn't about to be taken by surprise!

But, surprised he was when a familiar face showed through the dissipating smoke.

"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto was very confused at seeing his Academy instructor standing before them.

"Hey, Naruto," the man greeted with a nonchalant smile which caused the scar across his nose to crinkle as his cheeks tensed. "Long time no see."

"What's going on?" Sakura asked, shocked at the sudden appearance of a familiar face.

Naruto frowned in thought – Ranma didn't know this man, who had been like an older brother to him since graduating from the Academy. This would have bothered him if Ranma had decided to dislike the man, but he trusted Naruto's judgement in this case and left the matter alone.

"At the end of the Second Test, it is set up so we Chuunin meet up with the Exam takers," Iruka-sensei explained and pulled out what appeared to be a gold pocket-watch. "I was allowed to be the one who greeted you."

"Greet us?" Sakura asked, clearly confused about the whole thing.

"Looks like you made it in time," Iruka answered, consulting the watch. "It's my pleasure to inform you that you have all passed the Second Test. Congratulations, to celebrate your successful completion of the Second Test, I would have liked to buy you all a round of ramen, but-"

"_We did it_!" exclaimed an excited Naruto and tackled the scarred man about the waist in a hug. Ranma had not felt comfortable with this action, but Naruto was ignoring him at the moment, too thrilled to care about anything other than revelling in the joy of victory and the anticipation of a veritable Ramen Feast that was sure to follow. "We passed! We did it! We did it!"

This was his moment of victory, and _nothing_ could spoil it.

* * *

Author's Notes: I know I cut off at the start of the most exciting part, but that'll hopefully only bring more people back for the next chapter.

Translation:

Dobe – dead last / loser.

temee – (vulgar – used by young males) you - (_As the more perceptive of you may have noticed, I have deleted most of the use of this word, as I realised the use was incorrect – sorry for offending any Japanese nationals that may have been bothered by the initial mistake_)

-chan – (suffix) used after a person's name to express intimacy and affection.

Bunshin – Illusion Clone (basic ninja technique) illusion clone capable of nothing more than copying the caster and is easily revealed through attempts at physical interaction.

Kage Bunshin – Shadow Clone (advanced ninja technique) solid clone capable of independent or hive thought, can take one strong hit before dissolving.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer; This fanfiction uses existing ideas, characters and or worlds, but is an independent work of art. I own nothing, hence the reason for publishing my writings here instead of in real books where I could make some money.

* * *

"First off," announced an old man sagely. "Congratulations on passing the second test!" 

Naruto was unsure whether to grin madly, or bellow out another whoop of glee as the Sandaime Hokage stood before the teams that had passed.

Due partly to Ranma's influence, he settled for grinning and shaking with excitement.

The Genin were lined up in three rows in a large hall with a balcony along the edges a few metres up, and in front of them were their sensei, and the Examiners along with the Hokage. Behind the adults, a giant statue of a pair of hands forming the Ram hand seal stood along the wall.

There were twenty-one Genin in all, so the Examiner had made good on her promise to cut the passing group of seventy-eight from the First Exam in more than half.

"Sasuke-kun's team passed too!" squealed a girl from Naruto's left quietly in excitement.

_'Why are girls so attracted to him?'_ Naruto asked himself. _'He's moody, dark and hardly ever speaks to anyone if not to insult or command them around … why do girls find that sort of thing attractive?'_

_'You mean instead of going for a loud, energetic boy, who strives to make others recognise him?'_ asked Ranma. There was a hint of sarcasm in his tone, but Naruto didn't feel confident enough to respond, fearing he'd make another outburst if he was insulted.

Something prickled against his awareness – almost like killer intent, but without any hostility or malicious feelings … for some unknown reason, even to himself, Ranma shivered.

"Something doesn't feel right," Naruto heard Sasuke mutter into his sleeve as he wiped his face free of dirt with it.

"HOKAGE-SAMA WILL NOW EXPLAIN THE THIRD TEST!" declared the Second Examined, Anko was her name – if memory served. One simply didn't forget such an entrance as hers … "SO LISTEN CAREFULLY!"

The old man took a step forward and puffed his pipe one final time before removing it from his mouth.

"Before I explain the Third test, there is something I'd like to share … something I'd like you to know," the man started solemnly. "This concerns the true purpose of the Exams."

Every Genin looked confused.

_'Isn't the true purpose to make us into Chuunin?'_ Naruto asked himself.

_'Focus, and we might hear something interesting,'_ interrupted Ranma before the train of thought could consume his attention entirely.

"Why do all the allied countries take the Exam together?" continued the Sandaime. "'To promote friendship among the countries,' 'To raise the level of shinobi,' I don't want any of you to get confused about the true meaning: This Exam is … a replacement for war among the allied countries."

"What?" Naruto didn't know who had said it, but it reflected his own unvoiced question.

"If you go back a while in history, you'd find that the allied countries were enemies who fought each other over who would rule," the Hokage lectured. "In order to prevent wasteful fighting, the countries chose the Chuunin Selection Exams as a proper setting to vent our aggression."

Naruto wanted to scream out a question about whether or not this was about becoming Chuunin, but Ranma managed to detect and restrain his question to a strangled growl.

"The fact of the matter is; this exam decides which ninja has the potential to become Chuunin," Sandaime continued. "But, there is a second purpose for the exam … where each country's ninja risk their own life to protect their land's prestige. Leaders and influential people from many countries, who make up the shinobi's clients will be at this Third Exam to watch each of your battles. If one country shows greater strength than the others, then that country gets more clients … and conversely, if a country appears weak, they will lose clients.

"It will also send a political message to other countries; This is the power of our village."

"Yeah, but why do we have to risk our lives in battle?" growled the beast-like Kiba loudly enough for all to hear. A tense moment of silence followed.

"The strength of the country is the strength of the village," the Hokage explained. "The strength of the village is the strength of the shinobi, and a shinobi's true strength is only born through life-risking battle … This exam is to show other countries' strength, and to show off our own. It only matters because lives are at risk, and that's why those that came before you have fought in the Chuunin Exam."

"But," interrupted another girl from the ranks of the Leaf ranks. "Why did you say all that stuff about it being for 'friendship'?"

"I said that to begin with," admitted the old man. "I don't want you to confuse the purpose of this exam. The shape of friendship in the Shinobi World is in losing life and establishing balance. However, there is one more revelation remaining before we start the Third Exam; This is not just a test … this is mortal combat with your dreams and your country's prestige on the line."

_'I see …'_ Ranma muttered as Naruto declared in a confident tone: "I understand."

"I don't care about this, just tell us what this mortal combat entails," stated the redheaded kid coldly.

"I'd like to explain the Third Test, but-"

"Actually," a sickly-looking man appeared between the Genin and the other ninja in the room, bowing to the eldest of them. He was coughing, and his eyes had heavy bags under them, reminding Ranma of someone called Gosunkugi. "I apologise, Hokage-sama, but from here on, as the referee, will you allow me, Gekkou Hayate-"

"By all means," the old man agreed.

The man rose to his feet from his respectful bow, and turned to the Chuunin candidates. "My name is Hayate," he greeted and finished with a cough. "Before the third test, there is something I'd like you to do."

Another fit of coughs interrupted his speech for a moment, giving the Genin time to wonder how this man could be fit for the job as a ninja. Ranma, though Naruto did his best to mentally argue with him, saw that the man was acting weaker than he was even though he was sick. Lies and deception are a ninja's best tools.

"A preliminary for the Third test," Hayate finished his former sentence. "To decide who will participate in the main event."

"PRELIMINARY?" Shikamaru demanded in near outrage, a feeling reflected on nearly all the Genin. After all, they had already passed the first test, and nearly gotten themselves killed in the second, with varying times to recover ranging from a little over four days to mere minutes. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"

"Sensei," Sakura meekly asked, not as confident as she had been. "Why aren't all of us allowed to participate in the Third test?"

Groaning uncomfortably to withhold a cough, the new examiner turns to the pink-haired girl. "Because the first two tests must have been too easy this time," he answered. "There are too many of you remaining, so the rules state that to reduce the number of participants, we must hold a preliminary. As Hokage-sama said, there will be many guests watching the Third test, and the fights could take too long. We are limited on time.

"Anyone who can't fight, or feel they've had enough should forfeit now so we can get on with it."

"NOW?" an incredulous Kiba roared next to Naruto.

Watching everyone briefly, Naruto mentally chants to himself that he wasn't going to give up when he had gotten that far.

"Uhm, I'm going to quit," announced Kabuto sheepishly down the line, drawing the attention of all watching and surrounding him.

"Yakushi Kabuto-kun of the Leaf," Hayate confirmed from his list, and coughed once more. "You may leave. Does anyone else want to retire? From now on it will be one-on-one battles … raise your hand if you don't feel up to it."

"Coward," Ranma managed to restrain Naruto into growling, instead of making an unseemly and loud outburst where he would have demanded to know why the elder boy had given up.

"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun," the silver-haired Genin apologised, apparently being under the assumption that he had disappointed him somehow. "But my body is all beat up, and I haven't actually been able to hear out of my left ear since I was attacked by the Sound-nin in the First test … and now we have to risk our lives, I just …"

Shaking his head, Kabuto lowered his head as he walked off from the crowd, giving the appearance of shame and fear – Ranma was not fooled and informed Naruto that the boy had enough in him for one more fight, and for someone who had just resigned his chances of making Chuunin for another six months, the boy was awfully confident and satisfied.

The boy had a quick conference with his team mates before he continued away, giving Naruto an awkward wave.

When Kabuto was out of sight, Ranma registered an increase in activity with the mark on Sasuke's neck, which corresponded with a pained grimace on the boy as he raised a hand to clasp the spot. And the last Uchiha thought he could hide this from him … pheh.

"No one else?" Hayate coughed.

Though he didn't bother to listen to the specifics, Naruto heard Sakura encourage Sasuke to quit before becoming too affected by the mark. She would have quit or notified the examiner if Sasuke hadn't stopped her hand from rising and told her not to.

There was a brief and silent squabble among the Jounin that had undoubtedly seen the interaction, but no action was taken.

"Then let's begin the preliminaries," announced Hayate when no one else volunteered to leave. "This preliminary will consist of one-on-one fighting. You will essentially be fighting as though this was a real life confrontation."

A moment of silence was allowed for the Genin to understand the situation.

"Since we have exactly twenty participants, we will have ten matches," Hayate continued. "The winners move on to the Third test.

"There are no rules. The fight will continue until death, unconsciousness or surrender. I recommend you surrender if you don't feel like dying … however, when I have clearly determined a winner, I will jump in and stop the fight – we wouldn't want to pointlessly increase the number of corpses, would we?

"To decide on the match-ups for each battle, we will use this-" a board whirred out of the way above the large statue of the pair of arms, displaying a scoreboard. "Now, to decide on the first match-up."

The suspense was nearly tangible as lights started blinking on the electronic board.

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Akado Yoroi 

_'This can't be a coincidence,'_ Ranma commented as those who weren't supposed to fight moved to the upper level where they could observe the battle safely. _'They must have rigged it so Sasuke would fight first after arguing about him so he'd be one of the first to go.'_

A few moments after everyone had gotten comfortable against the metal rail guard along the upper level, Hayate stepped between Sasuke and the masked older boy.

"Please begin," Hayate announced.

Naruto watched the unfolding battle below them avidly, while Ranma kept a running commentary of their skills and mistakes.

_'Too flashy, he should have simply side-stepped those shuriken … his mark is acting up again … very nice, almost bashed Sasuke's skull in with that one … acceptable leg sweep, but the mask guy is charging somethin' … looks like Hinako's draining technique without a hoop … _

_'Oh, come on! That was barely a love-tap, why is Sasuke clutching his ribs? Get over it and get on with the fight! Don't give him time to think up a strategy, you broody bastard! _

_'He deserved that one … honestly, just laying there instead of trying to recover, he was beggin' for it! _

_'Okay, that guy got cocky and ignored Sasuke's legs … nice work on that kick for someone who had most of their energy drained … I could have done better, though. _

_'What are they doing? Is this a fight or a tea-party? Throw some punches, damnit! _

_'Ooh, nice rising kick … reminds me of what we saw Lee do to him before- THAT BASTARD STOLE FUZZY-BROW'S TECHNIQUE! He barely altered a thing! Okay, that's a little different, Lee used bandages to bind his opponent … Sasuke must have changed that part because he doesn't have bandages and never experienced the end of the attack … nice finish, though, using gravity to increase the damage done by his kick … bet that masked guy has at least a few cracked ribs, vertebrae and skull plates … wimps.'_

"I'm stopping the fight here," Hayate declared immediately after checking Yoroi's vital statistics. "The winner of the first fight, and candidate for the Third test: Uchiha Sasuke!"

_'What the- that redheaded guy is feeling a strong desire to kill someone after seeing that … freaky … wouldn't want to face him in a dark alley under the effects of a Moxibustion Point while hogtied by angry fiancées for looking at some girl the wrong way … and that Sound instructor almost feels sexually aroused … not a good thing when he's watching two guys fight … better stay away from that pervert …'_

Sasuke's opponent was being carried out on a stretcher by medic-nin, strapped down for his own protection.

Sasuke and Kakashi disappeared somewhere, and Hayate stepped into the middle again.

"We will now start the next match," the Jounin announced after clearing his throat.

The electronic score board flashed to life, cycling through the letters available until they came to rest.

Zaku Abumi vs. Aburame Shino 

_'Why is that guy walking out to fight when he has both arms in a sling?'_ Ranma pondered inside Naruto's head.

"Maybe he's stubborn," Naruto suggested, as he squinted at the pair who were to fight.

"What was that, Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"Nothing," Naruto laughed and grinned in embarrassment, rubbing the back of his head. "Just thinking out loud!"

_'That guy really needs to have something up his sleeve if he's planning on fighting …'_ Ranma continued, not bothering to comment on trying to keep their conversation internal.

_'We'd continue even without the use of our arms,'_ Naruto commented.

_'That's different,'_ Ranma argued. _'We have the power and stamina to back it up, though we have to work on our skills a bit … and we heal much faster than normal people do, so we can take more of a beating – but that guy can barely- hey, he's pulling an arm out of the sling … _

_'That hit didn't seem to have any power behind- **cool** … how did he get that blast right so fast? _

_'Are those **bugs** crawling out of the hole in Shino's cheek? _

_'Interesting description of their qualities … wouldn't want to have that skill in a million years, but still cool. Ooh, a flanking move with an army of bugs! This guy doesn't seem that strong, but he has a head for tactics … _

_'Ah, he **could** use both arms … sneaky. Now he has one weapon aimed at both fronts … what are those things in the palm of his hands?'_

-Bamph!-

_'Ouch, that has got to hurt! Losing an arm and barely having the other remain attached in a twin blast … goes to show you that you have to rely on your body first, gadgets second …'_

"It seems it's over," Hayate coughed after examining the broken-down Sound-nin where he had been knocked down by Shino.

Zaku was carried away on a stretcher, his detached forearm and hand placed on his stomach. That guy couldn't possibly resume a life as a ninja after such a severe injury.

"Winner; Aburame Shino!" Hayate managed to say without coughing or clearing his throat.

"I always thought he was creepy, but …" Sakura muttered in awe. "He's strong …"

"Uhm, I think we should go on to the next match," Hayate stated, followed by a cough.

In an instant, Naruto grabbed a kunai from his pouch and swung it to meet the sudden appearance behind them.

"Hey," greeted Kakashi casually as he stopped Naruto's hand with one of his own. "Feeling a bit twitchy, eh, Naruto?"

"Your own damn fault for sneakin' up on me!" Naruto snapped off before Ranma could stop it. The reflex action of attacking was one both Ranma and Naruto would have done under the circumstances, but that didn't mean they had to like it.

"What do you mean, 'Hey'?" a worried Sakura demanded. "How is Sasuke-san? Is he alright?"

"He's fine," Kakashi admitted. Ranma informed Naruto that he was hiding something, though. "He's sleeping in a hospital bed."

Sakura sighed in relief just as a pair of unfamiliar names appeared on the score board.

Ranma found the battle going on very interesting. One of the two, the Leaf-nin who also had on a veil-like mask, bent his limbs almost like he had no bones in them and like a python coiled himself around his opponent to squeeze the life out of him. The tables turned very quickly when the opponent turned out to be a puppet – the puppet master had been hidden in the bandaged bundle the puppet had been carrying around, and had been ignored as unimportant.

The Leaf-nin barely managed to wheeze out a cry of surrender as the puppet trapped him with additional limbs and superior strength, returning the favour of squeezing the life from his body.

"Winner, Kankuro!" Hayate declared, ending with another cough.

"I thought this was a one-on-one battle …" Naruto mused.

"That's just a puppet, Naruto," Kakashi corrected.

"It's a tool, just like a shuriken or kunai, using chakra to control it – Puppet No Jutsu," Sakura added for clarification.

"But now is not the time for lectures," Kakashi interrupted and tapped Sakura on the shoulder before pointing to the score board where Sakura's name was lit up along with Yamanaka Ino.

While the injured Leaf-nin was removed by medic-nin, Sakura and Ino took their places, exchanging intense stares. It was well known to all the recently graduated Genin from Konoha that the two were the fiercest rivals for the affections of Sasuke, and this rivalry seemed to have sustained itself since they last crossed paths before the exams.

In a surprise move, Sakura removed her hitai-ate from where it acted as a hair accessory, Ino removed hers from her hip, and after a few exchanged words, the forehead protectors were placed where they were intended to be, which seemed to be the signal for their battle to start.

_'Come on, a simple Bunshin?'_ Ranma groaned. _'Didn't Sakura learn any new techniques after the Acad- oh, I see, it was a trick … speed boost to catch the blonde off guard with a blow to the face … not bad. _

_'Stop talkin' and get on with the fighting! _

_'That's just pathetic! They both know the exact same amount of taijutsu from the Academy and know exactly how to counter attacks of the style! See! They blocked each other's attacks! _

_'Is this a double knock-out? No, they're getting back up … wow, it's been ten minutes already! And none of them has shown the least bit of dominance! Come on, show us something new! _

_'Okay, I have to admit, cutting off your own hair to prove a point in battle is new … why are they just standing there? _

_'Ah, special technique … slow one if what they say down there is right … is there energy going along the hairs on the ground? Cool, a trap made of her hair! Now Sakura can't avoid the special technique! _

_'Mind-control? Huh, never thought of that … now what?'_

"Get on with it!" Naruto yelled, reflecting Ranma's commentary tone.

"What is it," Hayate asked Sakura, who had suddenly doubled over, clutching her head. "Do you want to forfeit?"

"LIKE HELL I WILL!" the pink-haired girl exclaimed in a near rage.

In what seemed like desperate and jerky movements, Sakura's hands performed a seal that caused both girls to move.

After some staring and panting between them, both kunoichi scrambled to their feet and rushed at each other, intent on finishing the fight.

_'Double Knock-out,'_ Ranma commented. _'Just as I thought … they're both equally strong and skilled. They should have tied their forehead protectors on better, though …'_

"Both fighters are unable to continue!" Hayate announced. "The fourth preliminary match has no winner!"

The respective team leaders of the two picked them up, and jumped back up to the upper level where they leaned the two against the wall.

Oddly enough, both of them seemed to have contented expressions under the bruises and grit.

"They don't even seem to need medical attention," commented Ino's Jounin Instructor around his cigarette. "They should wake up in about half an hour."

Naruto tuned them out after hearing that they'd be fine, and instead focused on the score board to see yet another pair of unfamiliar names.

Temari of the Sand vs. Ten Ten of the Leaf 

_'Not bad,'_ Ranma commented as he and Naruto observed their approach in the ring. _'Absolutely not bad … they've both put a lot of work into their training beyond standard styles … weapon-users, though …'_

_'How d' you know all that?'_ Naruto chanced to ask, squinting in an effort to better see what Ranma was apparently seeing.

_'Easy,'_ Ranma nearly laughed. _'The way they walk practically screams extensive training, and the calluses on their hands indicate wear on the palm and fingers, which is common among either weapon-users or grunt-workers in construction or farming. Based on their occupation, they rely on weapons … and the giant battle fan Blondie there has with her gives her away …'_

"Begin!"

_'Whoa, that's almost as fast as I was with my Chestnut fist,'_ Ranma commented as the fight ended almost before it began, with Ten Ten unconscious in what must be a very uncomfortable position on the battle fan. Strewn around the pair were a slew of weapons, mostly sharp and thrown. Ten Ten had used a scroll to call out her weapons, unlike Mousse, who had pulled them from within his voluminous clothes.

That trick hadn't helped her much as Temari had used her fan to block or repel the onslaught of weapons, then knocked the Leaf-nin into the air to land on her back on the folded battle fan, unconscious, battered and bruised.

"Winner of the fifth match," Hayate called out. "Temari of the Sand!"

_'She's up to something!'_ Ranma warned Naruto as the victorious girl smirked.

Next to Ranma and Naruto, Lee noticed as well, and disappeared just as Temari threw the unconscious girl away like a sack of garbage. Lee caught her and almost managed to pull off an attack at the girl who had disrespected his team mate if she hadn't been prepared for that eventuality and blocked with her fan.

"Lee, stop!" commanded the Jounin who looked like an adult version of Lee, or was it the other way around?

"Temari," stated the redheaded Sand-nin from the upper levels coolly, yet audible to all. "You've been declared the winner, stop wasting time with that pathetic guardian and get up here."

What followed was a standard cautionary banter about being stronger than he appeared - he'd better be prepared, etc.

Ranma, however, decided to announce that they should get better weapons to specialise in … kunai and shuriken were all well and good, but they were disposable weapons and could easily be used against the former owner – as this was a world where weapons were necessary, Ranma insisted they visit a weapon smith as soon as possible, because he had an idea or two about what they could get.

"Don't lose to those guys, Naruto!" Sakura suddenly exclaimed next to him. Either more time had passed since she had lost consciousness, or the smoking guy couldn't tell time.

"Okay," Naruto agreed, starting to get excited despite Ranma's request not to use all his energy before the fight.

"Thanks for earlier," she added. "If you hadn't yelled back there, I would have lost."

"Yepp," Naruto agreed, while Ranma was shaking his head. That was a trap, one he most likely had fallen into on numerous occasions, but at least he learned to recognise them. The sudden reverse of Sakura's mood proved his theory correct.

Nara Shikamaru vs. Kin Tsuchi 

"Mah, lazy guy's turn …" Naruto moaned impatiently.

_'Just because he's lazy doesn't mean he's no good,'_ Ranma cautioned as both fighters slouched in their approach to the middle. _'My pops was lazy all his life, and I have to admit that he was very good … of course, I could beat him seven times out of ten by the time I was eighteen and made sure he couldn't fight dirty. Just look at those calculative eyes, he's got more going on that he shows.'_

"Don't lose, Shikamaru!" called Ino, who had also recovered from her fight.

"Begin!"

_'Cool, he's lengthening his shadows with his … chakra, was it?'_ Ranma commented. _'But what good does it do? Why is she avoiding the shadow? Oh, she's throwing around senbon with bells on them … if I recall, she'll eventually remove the bell from one needle, making it difficult to detect … a bit out of date, but a good trick- cool, she's modified it by attaching wire to the needles and shook them instead of throwing new ones and distracted Shikamaru so she could attack him when he's distracted. _

_'Ah, so that's what the shadow does … neat, but must be very energy consuming to maintain … _

_'Okay, remember, Naruto, to always be aware of your surroundings … or we could end up like that chick, with a massive concussion at best.'_

"Now, the next match," Hayate called and looked to the score board as it finished. "Uzumaki Naruto versus Inuzuka Kiba!"

"IT'S ABOUT TIME!" Naruto crowed triumphantly, much to Ranma's chagrin.

Naruto confidently strode down to his place across Kiba, the dog-like boy with a puppy peeking out of his jacket.

Kiba, it seemed, was equally excited about the match as Naruto.

"It's like we've already won!" the boy crowed. "Lucky, eh, Akamaru?" he asked his puppy, who barked happily in reply.

"Don't count your chickens until they hatch," Ranma made Naruto retort, instead of the snapping and yelling he would have. "And if you don't want your puppy to get hurt, you shouldn't bring him into a fight."

"Idiot!" laughed Kiba as he took Akamaru out of his jacket and placed him on the ground. Apparently he had misunderstood the warning. "Akamaru's fighting with me!"

"Animals and bugs are the same as tools," confirmed Hayate. "It is allowed."

"Fine," Naruto huffed. "If you feel you need the help …"

"Hah," Kiba laughed, though Naruto's words had hit home. "Quit acting so tough … Akamaru, you stay out of it. I'll fight him alone."

"DON'T LOSE TO HIM, NARUTO!" roared Sakura from the upper levels.

"I feel bad for you," Kiba continued after a very brief moment of thought. "So I'll beat you with one punch."

"Do your worst," Ranma made Naruto grouse in what would have been a cool tone if not for his child-like voice.

"Then begin!" Hayate interjected before things could escalate to a full-out shouting match.

Immediately, Kiba crouched down to the ground, and performed the Ram seal with his hands. "Shikakyu No Jutsu!"

A build-up in energy was almost tangible to Ranma, and both Ranma and Naruto saw the changes in Kiba. His face grew more feral, though that could just be his normal battle face, and his hands grew claws instead of nails.

Though Ranma could read what Kiba was about to do in the next second, Naruto did not have the training to react as fast, so when Kiba suddenly appeared in front of them with his elbow and shoulder ramming into their abdomen, all Ranma could make Naruto do, was raise his knee a little more than momentum should allow, scoring a glancing blow under Kiba's poorly guarded face, and sending them both into the air – though Naruto got distance and Kiba barely left the ground before landing on his feet.

Naruto impacted the ground near the wall, actually cracking the solid stone, while Kiba landed on his feet and rubbed his sore chin, where a bruise was already forming.

"He won't be waking up for a while," Kiba smugly informed Hayate and got up to triumphantly face the crowds, who had been surprised at how quickly this had ended.

_'We're not gonna let that love-tap put us down, are we?'_ Ranma more stated than asked.

Naruto's mouth twitched into a grin as he slowly got to his feet.

That blow had been hard. Not as hard as Zabuza's clone had hit, a little harder than Sakura usually hit him when he annoyed her, but the whole game of being a ninja was about deception – and if Kiba thought he would win against an injured opponent, then that ruse would have to be kept up until he realised that the injuries weren't as severe as first assumed.

"'S that th' best y' got?" Naruto demanded, intentionally adding a bit of a slur to his words.

"Stop acting so tough, you're bleeding!" Kiba yelled back.

"I _let_ you hit me!" Naruto grinned, not entirely true, but deception is part of being a ninja. After all, people truly believed he was a complete idiot for failing the Genin exams so many times – and despite that, he always put up a brave front. "To test your strength! You should take your own advice and not act touch! Use your dog if you feel you need the help …"

"I'll make you regret that," Kiba promised. "Akamaru, let's go!"

The feral boy reached into his hip pouch as he and his dog ran towards Naruto.

As his hand returned to Naruto's view, he saw it held two smoke balls.

-Bamph!-

_'Get down!'_ Ranma commanded, and as though he had not done so himself, Naruto dropped to the ground to feel the air move in the smoke above him. _'Jump!'_

Obeying Ranma's instructions, Naruto jumped into the air, and his head peeked out of the smoke for a moment, to see a puppy waiting outside, while something passed underneath him.

_'Duck and sweep!'_ as Naruto landed, he crouched down, as per instruction, and swept his leg in a half circle.

He felt Kiba's shins impacting his own, and took delight in the sound of someone falling to the ground.

_'Okay, there's only one way to finish this,'_ Ranma stated as he felt Kiba roll to his feet. _'Make sure to follow my instructions to the letter! Throw all our smoke balls out, detonate them all over to blanket everything!'_

Not arguing with Ranma, as he had not steered him wrong yet, Naruto reached into his freshly refilled hip pouch, and pulled out a handful of smoke balls, which he transferred to the other hand as he reached in for the last of them, then tossed them randomly around, filling the entire room and upper levels with smoke.

Understandably, everyone was a bit unsettled when they were blanketed in smoke – as the battle was usually confined to the lower level.

"It's no use, Naruto!" taunted Kiba. "My sense of smell is a thousand times more sensitive than a human's! I don't need to see you to get you!"

-chink!-twang!-

-ka-chink!-twang!-

-chink!-twang!-

-ka-chink!-twang!-

-chink!-twang!-

-ka-chink!-twang!-

-chink!-twang!-

-ka-chink!-twang!-

-chink!-twang!-

-ka-chink!-twang!-

-chink!-twang!-

"I wouldn't move if I were you," Naruto's smug voice floated through the smoke. It was the same smugness he usually displayed after pulling off a great prank, but a good deal of his loudness was gone. Had he had his own theme music, it would have risen to a delightful crescendo at that time. "You might set something off."

The smoke screen soon started to thin out, and the spectators noticed that several kunai had been attached to the walls at seemingly random intervals and heights.

Naruto was the first fighter that was visible, undoubtedly due to his bright blonde hair, and screaming orange jump suit, and he was standing confidently with his arms crossed, holding a kunai in one hand.

Kiba soon also became visible, and he was surrounded by very familiar strips of paper: Explosive notes, attached to nearly invisible ninja wire, which had been tied to the kunai that were lodged in the walls, trapping the feral boy in a tight explosive net.

"Give up?"

"Like hell I will! Akamaru!"

"He's indisposed at the moment," Naruto gloated, and the final corners of the room cleared of smoke to reveal a second Naruto holding a hogtied, muzzled puppy. "Do - you – give - up?"

"If you do not," coughed Hayate from the side-lines. "Or can't get out of there, I will declare you incapable of continuing."

With a reluctant snarl, Kiba admitted defeat.

"Cool," Naruto cheered and started pulling on the wires. "I won! Now to get back my supplies …"

"NO! YOU'LL SET THEM OFF!"

As several kunai loosened from the walls, everyone cringed and braced for a massive explosion, most of all Kiba, who looked about ready to soil himself.

Harmlessly, the kunai clattered to the ground, and Naruto pulled them back to him like he was fishing, reeling in the wire, while peeling off the explosive notes as though they were unimportant or harmless.

"Heh, fooled you!" Naruto taunted upon seeing their shocked expressions. "D' you really think I'd set off that many explosive notes indoors while I was still here? These were just dummy notes I made and attached while waiting for the smoke to clear! I'm saving the real ones for later!"

"Winner of the fifth preliminary match: Uzumaki Naruto!" Hayate announced to the surprised and slightly awed crowd.

Naruto was feeling great as he marched up to the upper levels … he had just beaten Kiba, and proven to his peers that he wasn't as far behind them as they had thought. Of course, he had gotten a little careless while he detached the kunai from the wires, and gotten a few cuts, but the dull sting was worth it to see the expression on Kiba's face when he thought he was about to be blown to bits.

"N-Naruto-kun," a nearly unheard voice said timidly.

Naruto stopped and looked around to see Hyuuga Hinata. She was holding something as she addressed him, but was afraid to look him in the eye.

Shakily, the girl held out her hands, revealing a small jar which she was presenting him.

"What's this?" Naruto asked cautiously. He had after all just beaten her team mate, so it wasn't too paranoid to expect retaliation.

"Medical cream," explained a rather well endowed woman with red eyes behind him. The girl's Jounin Instructor.

"For me?" Naruto asked. _'Why isn't she talking on her own?'_ wondered Ranma.

"Just take it, Naruto," the Jounin urged him.

"Uh, sure," Naruto accepted and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. He wasn't used to people giving him stuff. "Thanks, that was really nice of you, Hinata."

The girl blushed deeply, but only Ranma noticed, as Naruto was too engrossed in the concept of being given something for no reason. Ranma didn't say it, but he recognised that look … he'd been on the receiving end of it once or twice when his fiancées weren't around. Hinata was smitten with them. How long had that been going on?

"Wow, this works well," Naruto commented, drawing Ranma's attention to the cuts on their hands being healed in a hissing noise as Naruto applied the cream. "This is great medicine!"

"Next match!" Hayate called out. "Hyuuga Neji versus Hyuuga Hinata!"

Hinata, who had just seen her humiliated team mate, timidly stepped out to Hayate, opposite a long-haired guy with similar eyes to hers.

While a conversation took place around them concerning the relation between Hinata and Neji, Ranma was focused on the contestants, reading them as best he could.

Neji clearly despised Hinata – his posture and scowl said as much.

Hinata did not share her cousin's feelings, and was uneasy about having to fight him. Her posture also reflected a low self-esteem and insecurity in her own skills.

"Begin!" Hayate called, and retreated out of the way.

Unlike most of the fights, this one did not start off right.

Neji did his best to get Hinata to surrender, playing mind tricks to weaken her already fragile confidence.

The longer this went on, the more enraged both Ranma and Naruto became.

That bastard had no right to do this! And his opinion and theory was WRONG! People _can_ change!

Finally, it became too much to hold in, and Naruto erupted.

"SHUT UP, TEME!" he roared. Ranma felt a rush of power, and struggled to keep it in check. "JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T, DOESN'T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO STOP OTHERS FROM CHANGING! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND GET ON WITH LETTING HINATA-CHAN BEAT SOME SENSE INTO YOU!"

Naruto's speech seemed to have emboldened Hinata, because after a brief moment to reflect on something, she activated her family ability, the Byakugan, and slid into a smooth defensive battle stance.

The blood vessels around the eyes of the combatants tightened and became visible as they jutted out under the skin, and the battle was on.

_'These have to be the most skilled hand-to-hand fighters so far … except for me …'_ Ranma commented. _'Smooth style, fast movements, precise strikes and blocks … pressure points, and acupuncture points if memory serves … very damaging if they land a hit, if I'm not mistaken … _

_'Not difficult to replicate if you know where to hit … but those eyes look almost unnatural … especially now, with all those veins popping out … _

_'Close one, Hinata, you almost had him!'_

_'What would have happened if she did?'_ Naruto could not help but wonder.

_'She was aiming for a cluster of nerves that control respiration,'_ Ranma lectured. _'Had she hit properly, she would have seized his breathing for a moment, which would have been long enough to incapacitate him or kill him … though given what we know about her, she wouldn't kill a relative unless it was absolutely necessary … the qualities of a good leader …'_

_'Was there anything where she did hit?'_ Naruto asked quickly as the two Hyuuga circled each other, trading and blocking blows.

_'I seem to recall a nerve that would shut down the kidneys for a second, but as it wasn't necessary for combat or first aid, I didn't bother remembering it,'_ Ranma admitted.

Energy practically trailed behind every movement as the two fought.

Listening to the chatter around them, Ranma and Naruto learned more about the Byakugan than they had known earlier … it seemed it was very useful for seeing pressure points, acupuncture points, general nerve clusters and energy flow.

The Hyuuga trained to introduce a pulse of their own chakra into the opponent's system, disrupting the flow through certain clusters, and disabling either organs, limbs or the ability to manipulate chakra. _'If we're gonna face people like that, we definitely need some sort of primary weapon,'_ Ranma affirmed from his earlier statement.

Naruto's reply was cut off as Ranma roared out an internal _'NO!'_ that gave the blonde a headache.

_'Her heart's been hit, it's beating irregularly!'_ he explained when Naruto complained.

Neji pushed the injured girl back, knocking her down.

Despite the pain she must be in, Hinata got back up, shaking, bleeding, sweating and barely able to draw breath. Her shaking steadied after a look up at them, though – but Ranma could tell she was ten minutes from death unless someone interfered.

Before she could even take another step, she doubled over and coughed up blood that spattered onto the ground.

Both Ranma and Naruto were shaking with rage at Neji for hurting family that way.

On the other hand, Hinata didn't look like she would surrender until she was dead, so Naruto could not withhold a yell of encouragement to her.

The show of support worked, somewhat, and Hinata rushed back into combat with her cousin – who was barely scratched.

Hinata's injuries cost her, as a blow to the liver was followed by a backhand that sent her stumbling back a step.

Ignoring her pain, the girl once more returned to fight, but was defeated by a palm heel blow to the solar plexus.

After a moment, the judge was about to declare Neji the winner, when Hinata slowly started pushing herself to a hunched standing position.

She was holding her side, one arm was limp, but determined not to show weakness.

When his taunts were not answered or reacted to, Neji let his temper get the best of him, and he rushed in.

Naruto didn't know what happened, but one moment he was on the upper levels, seeing Neji's muscles tensing – he blinked and found himself between Neji and Hinata, right leg extended in a kick aimed for the boy's reproductive organs but halted barely before contact, Hayate standing next to him with his finger tapping Neji's forehead protector, Kakashi standing closer with a grip on the boy's extended arm, Gai standing behind Neji with a grip around his neck, and Hinata's sensei kneeling with a grip on Neji's other arm.

Everyone seemed as surprised as Naruto to find him there, but he didn't have time to voice his confusion as Hinata's injuries caught up with her, making her collapse to the ground in a violent series of coughs.

Ranma pushed Naruto's control out of the way for another moment as he helped the girl lay on her back – moving his hand over her ribs. If Naruto couldn't feel his fingers, he would not have noticed the slight flicker of them moving faster than normal, pressing a few points that caused the nearly unconscious Hinata to breathe easier.

"Don't worry, Hinata-chan," he assured her. Naruto found it very weird feeling and hearing himself speak without actually doing it. "You'll be okay. Promise."

Hinata smiled a little before her eyes closed.

Allowing Naruto control again, Ranma nearly faded completely away, leaving Naruto feeling exhausted.

He stepped back to allow the medic-nin access to the now unconscious girl, and she was rushed out at greater speeds than any of the other injured combatants.

"Hey," called the obnoxiously confident Neji. "Loser. If you're trying to be a shinobi, then cut out that annoying habit of cheering for others … in the end, a loser is a loser – they cannot change."

"You're wrong," Naruto growled. "People can change if they want to …"

He took a step closer, but found his path blocked by Lee. "Naruto-kun, please calm yourself. Save the fighting for the matches – if he faces either of us in the Third test, we will prove to him that hard work can enable a loser to defeat the elite."

"Fine," growled Naruto. Looking around to avoid enraging himself further, he spotted a puddle of Hinata's blood – using every possible means, he kept his emotions under wraps and marched over to the puddle. Once there, he swiped his hand through it to the point where his fingers were dripping. There was so much …

Raising the blooded hand, Naruto clenched it into a fist, which he directed at the male Hyuuga.

"I'm gonna take you down," he promised grimly.

Neji didn't seem to take him seriously, but Naruto didn't care – he had been warned.

* * *

In his own place on the upper levels, Sandaime Hokage looked thoughtfully on the pariah of Konoha as he wandered up the stairs back to the upper levels.

"It seems five days in the forest has improved Naruto-kun's skills more than we thought," he mused.

"Beg your pardon, Hokage-sama," Iruka interrupted. "But Naruto couldn't have gotten good enough to teleport down there that fast, even with his vast reserves. What he did looked more like what Gai did – purely physical."

"Indeed …" agreed the aged man. "And he seems more restrained and mature than before entering this exam …"

"You don't think …"

"No, I do not," the Sandaime disagreed. "We would have been able to feel it if that had been the case."

"Then what?"

"According to reports, Orochimaru was in the area, and might still be …"

"So Naruto-kun could be possessed?"

"Not in this case, but their team did run into him, and my wayward student appeared when Kakashi was sealing the mark he left on Uchiha Sasuke … the boy mentioned he had been acting strange since the encounter," Sarutobi continued. "But his sudden leap in speed isn't what troubles me about our resident prankster."

"What is it, Hokage-sama?"

"While he was apparently checking for broken ribs, young Hinata started breathing easier."

"I don't understand …"

"I've seen the Hyuuga perform healing and fighting techniques for a long time – and what I just saw resembled this somewhat … that he knows some of their secrets would mean one of two things: he has been injured enough in his lifetime to know where to press in order to alleviate pain … or …"

"Or what, Hokage-sama?"

"Or he snuck into the Hyuuga compound and copied their technique and medical scrolls …"

"But only those with the Byakugan can see them!" Iruka protested. "And Naruto doesn't have those eyes!"

"The tenketsu are still there whether the Byakugan is in use or not," Sandaime mused. "Only extensive use of the tenketsu would allow someone to easily find them without using the Hyuuga gift."

"Hiashi-san will not be pleased to hear this," Iruka decided, looking at Naruto as he walked away from an irate Sand-nin in kobuki getup.

"Precisely," Sandaime Hokage agreed. "So it would be in Naruto's best interest not to tell him … perhaps he will reveal it in time, and be accepted by the Hyuuga - But at the moment, it is more likely that they will attempt to assassinate him and take him apart to learn how he found out their secrets."

* * *

_'There's something seriously wrong with that redhead,'_ Ranma commented as the boy appeared on the ground in a swirl of sand for his battle with Lee.

_'He looks kinda strange,'_ agreed Naruto. _'Who tattoos "love" on their forehead in red ink?'_

_'That's not it,'_ argued Ranma. _'His aura is seriously disturbed – unnatural. It feels like a failing spirit ward keeping an oni in place …'_

_'Nii-san, you've fought oni?'_ Naruto asked in awe. Ranma ignored the familiar reference.

_'Worst I ever fought was a demi-god phoenix king,'_ he bragged. _'I won, of course …'_

_'Wow,'_ Naruto couldn't help but mentally exclaim. _'But … why did you take control of my body?'_

_'Sorry, but you wouldn't have responded fast enough with me yelling instructions,'_ Ranma replied. _'Wow, Lee's fast! _

_'That sand is not natural … it's responding to this Gaara like it's reading his mind or has a life of its own!'_

_'That guy's got better control over sand than Haku had over ice!'_ Naruto chipped in. _'And at least give me a warning the next time you take over, okay?'_

"LEE! TAKE THEM OFF!" Gai called to Lee, who had after a series of failed attacks retreated to the tip of the statue fingers, where he was catching his breath.

"BUT GAI-SENSEI! THAT'S ONLY FOR PROTECTING MANY PRECIOUS PEOPLE, ISN'T IT?" Lee called back.

"IT'S OKAY!" Gai replied confidently, and stretched out his fist with a thumb extended upwards. "I'LL ALLOW IT!"

_'Those things are almost as heavy as Ryoga's umbrella,'_ Ranma commented in deep thought. _'We should ask Lee or Gai where they got them …'_

"LEE! GO!" Gai instructed.

Ranma had a great deal of difficulty in tracking Lee, even with the ki senses he enjoyed using so much. One moment the green-clad fuzzy-brow was on the statue, then in a shimmer, he was crouching behind Gaara.

Gaara's sand, which reacted to protect Gaara, according to his team mate, was fast enough to stop the super fast punches and kicks, but the force behind them was enough to plough through to such a degree that the limbs were visible through the walls of sand, stopping just short of striking the racoon-like boy.

Lee suddenly appeared above Gaara in a flipping kick that got through the automated defences to strike Gaara's head, scoring a scratch along one cheek.

"LEE!" Gai roared. "EXPLODE!"

"YES!"

One moment, it seemed like he was about to appear behind Gaara, and he actually felt that and turned – but then Lee appeared in front of him a split second later, delivering a punch strong enough to propel the redhead several metres in a spin, sand trailing around and after him.

The Leaf-nin assembled started feeling good about their guy down there, but Ranma felt something about the redhead. It felt like a combination of Ryoga and Kuno's aura mixed together. Blood-lust … that was the best description he could come up with.

As Gaara rose to his feet, his face started cracking, like plaster, falling off in chips to reveal an insane grin underneath the former unmoving neutral expression … it had been a mask!

Gaara's entire body was covered in dense sand that acted like a personal armour set and Hunter mask in one!

Sand slithered along through the air to coat the uncovered areas, his neutral expression and insane grin replaced with an angry scowl. Cracks lined the face of Gaara, as well as his clothes and arms – revealing that it was still a protective armour.

Lee unwrapped part of his bandages, and suddenly vanished in favour of a ring of dust kicked up around Gaara where the fuzzy-browed boy was running.

Suddenly, Lee appeared inside Gaara's guard with an upwards kick like the one he had used on Sasuke, which the bastard had copied and already used in his preliminary fight. The difference between Sasuke's version and Lee's, was that Lee could get his opponent much higher, and catch up with him faster.

Gaara was wrapped in bandages like a mummy, and Lee started guiding their plummeting descent – head first and spinning tightly.

_'That landing's gonna hurt,'_ Ranma cringed.

-Crack-oom!-

Just as Gaara impacted, Lee leapt away and landed lightly.

The point of impact was riddled with blocks of stone jutting up from the hole that was several metres deep.

Naruto was cheering his fellow Leaf-nin on, but Ranma felt something was wrong – the armour was crumbling and dissolving in on itself … it was hollow!

_'There! Behind him!'_ Ranma pointed out to Naruto, assisting him by focusing his eyes on the indicated spot.

Rising out of the broken ground was a mound of sand that started taking form of a human.

A tidal-wave of sand washed over Lee and smashed him against the stone wall.

A second wave that an exhausted Lee blocked ploughed him into the wall, forming a crater.

A third attempted to finish the job, but Lee managed to roll out of the way.

_'The boy can barely move after that cool technique,'_ Ranma asserted. _'But he doesn't give up … very admirable, but it won't do him any good in the long run – unless he can pull a miracle out of those sleeves of his … _

_'Apparently, he has one ready …'_ Ranma corrected as Lee managed to rush out of the way of a crushing blow by the sand, and stood confidently facing his enemy again. The floor was by now mostly composed of jutting rock, rather than the smoothly cut stone they had been. _'Seems he's removing his mental blocks one at a time …'_

_'His what?'_ Naruto asked, scratching his head in confusion.

_'They're known as the Celestial Gates … they are blocks your mind puts on your body to keep you from killing yourself or damaging your every muscle,'_ Ranma lectured. _'From the looks of things, he has gotten one block undone – more specifically the one for healing, which would explain why he's suddenly more energised than earlier. There goes another one!'_

Power swirled around Lee, his face flushed with life, veins throbbing, hair tousled in a wind that kicked up dust from around him.

"Another one," Naruto muttered as Lee crouched down a little, screaming as the wind picked up and small rocks were kicked into the air around him. Lee's colour was turning deep red, and a slim trickle of blood came out his left nostril as he grit his teeth.

An explosion of displaced air replaced Lee, and on the other end of the battle-field, Gaara's head snapped back from a kick that carried him up into the air.

Almost sluggishly by comparison, the sand followed Gaara.

Suddenly, a blast of displaced air erupted in front of Gaara, sending him flying, only for a moment later having a repeat performance that sent him back.

The next twenty seconds made Gaara look like a pinball in a ring of flippers sending him around bouncing off seemingly invisible barriers, cracking the armour and scattering it a little each time it was hit.

_'He just snapped a muscle,'_ Ranma commented.

_'How do you know that?'_ Naruto demanded. _'Just a little ago, we could hardly feel Lee for his speed, and he must be much faster now!'_

_'First off, I am very good at adapting and learning, so while Lee speeds up, I am learning to read faster movements,'_ Ranma answered importantly. _'Second, his speed slowed somewhat just as it happened, and I could see a distortion under his sleeves … Thirdly … Kakashi just said it.'_

"FIFTH ELEMENT GATE: OPEN!" roared Lee from somewhere in the tower.

_'Ouch!'_ Ranma commented as Gaara was struck down towards the ground by his stomach – scattering air like he broke the sound barrier.

As everyone prepared for Gaara to hit the ground, he halted, his sash grabbed by Lee who was still in the air and used the piece of clothing like the Sand-nin was a yo-yo, pulling the redhead back up into the waiting fist of Lee.

The following impact with the ground caused dust to scatter all over the lower level, almost masking Lee's rough fall next to the crater.

As the dust cleared, Gaara lay in the crater, head turned to Lee and arm extended.

Sand slithered out and wrapped around Lee's left limbs, and before anything else could be done, Gaara closed his hand and a crunching sound reverberated all over the tower, immediately followed by the pained scream of Lee.

Before any more damage could be done, the sand burst apart between Lee and Gaara, revealing Gai, who was very grave. Even Ranma had not registered the green-clad man moving – though that could be from a combination of factors including distraction by means of the fight.

Naruto couldn't hear the words exchanged between Gaara and Gai, but as Gai intervened on Lee's behalf, Lee lost by default – not that there as much of a likelihood of Lee being able to continue fighting, though …

"Winner, Gaara!" Hayate declared.

It came as a great surprise when Lee suddenly got up to his feet into a ready stance, despite his shattered arm and leg.

_'He's still unconscious,'_ Ranma observed.

_'How can you tell?'_ Naruto asked and tried to see for himself. He thought it was strange having another voice in his head, but it beat being ignored by everyone all the time – and Ranma had been very helpful so far.

_'I was trained to evade attacks in my sleep – so I've learned to recognise when others do something similar. Lee is still unconscious – just look at his unfocused eyes, half-closed, and his slumped pose. He's trying so hard to become a ninja without all the fancy ninjutsu or genjutsu that even when he's comatose, he gets up to fight … I don't know enough pressure points to heal him from something like those serious fractures,'_ he added regretfully. _'But maybe I can still do something …'_

Naruto nodded and jumped over the edge from the upper levels, managing to reach Lee at the same time as the medics arrived.

_'Oh, this kid's a mess!'_ Ranma exclaimed as they got a closer look. The medic took Gai aside, possibly to inform him of the same thing. _'Let's see … torn muscles all over, shattered bones in his left hand and forearm, and left foot and shins … he has no chakra worth mentioning, but his ki is strong … had he known how to use it properly, this could be fixed in a matter of weeks. _

_'Okay … when I broke a bone somewhere, my ki flow altered to repair it faster – I can't recall having had a broken bone for more than a couple of days. If I could just alter Lee's ki to full healing mode similar to opening his- that could work … I force open his healing gate, using our energy instead of his – and leave it open a crack to accelerate his recovery! Excuse me …'_

Naruto once more got the feeling of being nudged aside, and was along for the ride as his body knelt to the ground above Lee's head, cupping the right side above the right cerebral hemisphere. Concentration was felt, and a tiny spark of the energy Ranma called ki shot from his hand, into Lee's head.

It was an odd sensation, as he could almost feel the spark moving around inside Lee's head until it found what it was looking for and latched on … Naruto then felt a tingle in his left arm and leg, and saw an almost ethereal glow from Lee's left-side limbs that no one else seemed to notice.

Lee started breathing with more difficulty, and Naruto's hand jabbed a point on Lee's neck before the medics noticed he was there and pulled him off. They then checked to see if he had done any harm.

"What did you do, brat?" one of the medic-nin demanded.

"I did all I could," Ranma replied for Naruto, crossing his arms in confident defiance. "Unlike _some_ people."

"Naruto-kun," Gai stated. "What did you do to my precious student, please tell me."

"I forced his second gate open a crack to help his healing," Naruto answered after hesitating only a moment, relieved to be back in charge of his body. "But it caused him pain so I numbed him from the neck down. It should wear off in an hour or two … he still needs to operate the bone fragments back where they belong, but I think his chances of returning to normal increased by about thirty percent …"

"Then you are a good friend," Gai announced, extending his hand in a fist with his thumb extended upwards, a typical good-guy pose – his teeth even momentarily gleamed and made a crystal ping. "And you do credit to my eternal rival, Kakashi! But when Lee is back in shape, I will challenge my rival once more to see who has the best student!"

"Did you say something, Gai?" asked Kakashi casually as he walked up to Naruto.

"OOOH! ANOTHER HIP RESPONSE BY MY ETERNAL RIVAL!" Gai seethed in exaggerated envy.

"What?" Kakashi dismissed. "Naruto-kun, we should clear the area and make room for the next battle."

_'He's suspicious,'_ Ranma added _'If he's as suspicious as I think he is, he will ask about our newfound abilities soon.'_

True to Ranma's predictions, Kakashi laid a hand on Naruto's shoulder and guided him away. "That was an interesting performance," the masked man commented. "I can't recall having seen anyone outside the Hyuuga clan perform something like that … Be careful – the Hyuuga might not like someone having figured out how to copy their healing techniques and rogue elements of the clan might act in a way they think is necessary to prevent the secret from spreading."

"I had to figure _something_ out since all you've taught me is tree-climbing," Ranma commented on Naruto's behalf, going with Kakashi's assumption that he had gotten the techniques from observing the Hyuuga clan.

"Not entirely true, Naruto-kun," Kakashi argued lazily. "I also taught you to work with your team mates even if you don't like one of them … but let us forget this for a moment and watch the match."

"Would Dosu Kinuta and Akimichi Chouji please step forward for the final match?" Hayate requested.

_'I did not expect Kakashi to mistake our actions as independent study of another clan,'_ Ranma admitted. _'That's an interesting technique …'_ he added after Chouji inflated himself like a balloon and rolled around like a runaway boulder trying to squash his opponent.

"I'M NOT FAT! I'M PLEASANTLY PLUMP!" roared the overweight boy as he charged his opponent.

_'Ouch, I'd hate to be the one to rebuild this place with all the holes in the ground and walls,'_ Ranma remarked as Chouji crashed into the wall and was attacked by Dosu. At first it seemed like the attack was useless, but then the noise came – muffled. It was Chouji's pained scream. _'The human body is composed of mostly water, and water conducts sound … he would have been better off not using that technique and gone for proper airplugs.'_

"Winner, Dosu Kinuta!" Yelled Hayate. "The preliminary trials for the Third test has been completed! Would the winners please assemble to be assigned their opponent for the Third test?"

Eight teens made their way to the ground level, and lined up facing the statue. Naruto noticed that Sasuke was not present despite being the winner of his fight … he was apparently still in the hospital.

"Congratulations to all of you who earned the right to compete in the Third test of the Chuunin exam, even if one of your number is missing. Hokage-sama, if you would …"

"Very well," agreed the old man and took a step forward as Hayate retired to the sides. "I'd like to explain the main test …" _'Finally!'_ Naruto exclaimed internally. "As I said earlier, the main matches will be seen by everyone. Each of you will fight to show the strength of your countries. Please do not hold back when your time comes.

"To give you time to prepare, the main event will take place in one month from now. This time will also be used for the Lords and Shinobi Leaders to be informed of the participants and arrange for the gathering. Take this time to familiarize yourselves with your opponents, work out a strategy, calculate your chances and review the fights you have seen today.

"So far, the battles you've fought have been against unknown factors. This will not be the case next.

"Some of you have shown all your tricks – some competed against a stronger opponent and got injured. This month should be used by all of you to advance and improve yourselves … though resting to regain your strength is not frowned upon.

"As much as I'd like to dismiss you now, there remains something that has to be done before that happens," the Hokage looked the group over once for suspense, anticipating an interruption. "Anko will come around with a box. This box will contain slips of paper … each of you will take one piece of paper."

"Only one," Anko declared as she held the box out to Dosu.

Eventually, the box made its way to Naruto, who gingerly reached in and pulled out a slip of paper with the number One on it.

"Would you all please read your number," the Hokage requested when Anko finished her round. Ibiki, the examiner from the first test, took out a pad and wrote down the numbers next to the names that had not been crossed out. All the numbers from one to nine were read, with the exception of four, which became the default number of the missing contestant. Naruto had a shrewd feeling that had that missing contestant been anyone but Uchiha Sasuke, they would have disqualified him for not being there during the final arrangements. "Ibiki, would you kindly show them the match arrangements?"

"Of course," the scarred man agreed, and held up his pad after some scribbling on the next sheet.

The paper showed a tournament hierarchy system with their names arranged by numbers at the bottom … Naruto's name connected with Neji!

* * *

Author's Notes: As some may have noticed, I have retold the lines of some characters rather freely, rearranging sentences or using different words. This is because I only have Fansubs of both Manga and Anime, and so don't feel I should follow everything to the letter – basically because those that translated seemed to have done so either poorly or directly without taking grammar or context into consideration. I am therefore forced to occasionally reinvent parts of sentences based on what was said and figure out what they MEANT to say.

I apologise for not deviating from canon in the match pairings and described moves, but to avoid being yelled at too much, I deliberately shortened the description into a running commentary for the most part.

The more avid fans of Naruto will probably recognise where I got the idea for Naruto's trap from … that's all I'll say about that.

I am aware of canon Ranma not knowing much about pressure points etc. except for the Yama Sen Ken meant to cause great pain for the victim by thrusting spear hands into certain spots along the spine – but this Ranma died at age nineteen, so it's reasonable that he could have picked up quite a few new tricks since canon ended at around age seventeen.

Furthermore, I know I abhor writing from the perspective of other characters than the main, but in this chapter, I thought it necessary.

Lastly, this chapter is rather long, which I am sure some people will enjoy, but please don't expect me to attempt to maintain this length for each chapter. The reason the chapter is as long as it is, was because it didn't feel right to split up the Preliminaries into different chapters. It's been done before, but I'd rather save up the fights for one large chapter than many small ones.


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer; This fanfiction uses existing ideas, characters and or worlds, but is an independent work of art. I own nothing, hence the reason for publishing my writings here instead of in real books where I could make some money.

* * *

It was barely morning the day after being dismissed by the Hokage from the central tower within the Forest of Death that Naruto was found standing in front of the reception desk at the hospital. 

"WHAT THE HELL?"

And the staff was most uncooperative.

For nearly an hour that morning, Naruto had tried to locate his team leader, Kakashi, and after eliminating most places he suspected the pervert to be, deducted that he must be visiting Sasuke. Ranma thought this was an excellent conclusion.

The woman behind the desk flinched at his loud exclamation, and looked as though she expected him to literally bite her head off.

"Naruto, this is a hospital so be quiet," stated a familiar voice in a resigned sigh … in fact, it was the voice he wanted to hear.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly, ignoring the instruction he had just been given. "I have a request!"

"No need," the silver-haired Jounin interrupted. "I already know what you want to ask, and I've found someone to take care of your training."

"But I want you to-"

"I've got some business to take care of," Kakashi interrupted again. "I don't have time to look after you."

"You're gonna train Sasuke, aren't you," Naruto deadpanned. He was used to people avoiding interaction with him, but he thought that after being assigned to a team, that would change … and the mission to Wave country had been a good start. Why the sudden change?

"Don't say that," Kakashi placated, but Ranma commented that he wasn't really denying the accusation. "I've found you a teacher that is much more reliable than me."

"And who would that be?" Naruto asked, and then shuddered. "Not that crazy coat lady?"

"No," interrupted a stern male voice from behind him. "He's talking about me."

Naruto turned to face the man who interrupted a perfectly good discussion. "YOU! THE CLOSET PERVERT!"

The stiff man pushed his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger, as he sniffed in insult.

"What can this guy possibly teach me?" Naruto continued, ignoring the rude gesture the man had hidden as an innocent action. "I've already defeated him once with my Harem No Juts-!"

Any further complaint was silenced as the man, Ebisu – Konohamaru's Special Jounin Instructor – wrapped his arm about Naruto's head, or more specifically his mouth.

"Harem No Jutsu?" Kakashi asked curiously.

"It's nothing, really!" Ebisu laughed nervously. To Naruto he whispered fiercely. "Just be quiet about that, and I'll treat you to anything you want later on!"

Both Naruto and Ranma intended on keeping the man to his promise … and as sure as they were standing there, Ebisu's wallet would hurt for weeks after they collected on this meal.

"I didn't know you two knew each other …" commented Kakashi thoughtfully.

"Ha ha, we go way back, right?" Ebisu laughed in a clearly exaggerated manner as he ruffled Naruto's hair.

Naruto didn't dignify the question with an answer, but instead returned to the topic at hand. "Why him? I don't really like him …"

"The same goes for me," returned Ebisu sternly, giving up the pretence of friendship. "I'm only here because of Kakashi-kun's request!"

"Hey, now," Kakashi butted in. "Let's not have any of that. Naruto … I have three students on my team, and of those three, you are the worst at basics skills. He will teach them to you … thoroughly."

Before Ranma awoke in his mind during the second part of the Chuunin Exams, Naruto would most likely have erupted into a fit of indignant fury where he would have demanded to know where he failed to stack up against Sasuke and Sakura. Now, he was already informed by what they had concluded was him from a previous life that he was lacking in several areas and would have to make up for it quickly if he intended on living longer than he did before.

While Ranma had said he would train Naruto, it would be suspicious if he suddenly appeared with knowledge no one could trace the source of … given what was sealed behind his navel, it was a high probability that people would leap to the conclusion that he was under the influence of the Kyuubi.

This would not be beneficial for their health.

Instead, they needed someone to train them, and claim they had been holding back if later asked about their astounding progress.

Though he had not asked for it, Naruto was still given a lecture about how he was not as efficient in his chakra control as the others. Where only a small bit of chakra was needed, he would spend all of the chakra he had mixed for the purpose, instead of letting what had been left over recycle back into his system, or save it for other attacks. This would of course result in quicker exhaustion, which would be extremely dangerous in a serious situation.

And the excess chakra also had a habit of destabilising the activation of a jutsu, which would explain why he had never been able to form a proper Bunshin, and why when he did, they looked ill.

"Well, then," Kakashi finished after having added that the only reason Naruto could outlast the others was his vast stamina. "I'll leave things in your hands, Ebisu-sensei."

* * *

Steam rose, danced in the air from wind that wafted inside through the openings along the roof, and from the relaxed movements of those inside.

The slow lapping sound of water striking rock, and the feminine snickers and chatters filled the air.

Bared limbs stretched, rubbed against each other to remove dirt and sweat, and revealing more to any who happened to be watching. The most anyone wore was a small towel across the lap as they scrubbed themselves clean.

Naruto nearly stopped to stare as he passed the small peephole in the wall into the women's side of the hot springs … one of the shapely women inside had bent over to pick up her bucket of bathing supplies, and bared it all to him for that instant he had looked in.

Such lovely curves … soft and delicate skin, and not a single hair out of place anywhere.

"Naruto-kun!" the stern voice of Ebisu erupted. Naruto had certainly collected on his promise to treat him to a meal … it was actually amazing how much food that kid could put away, and Ebisu realised he would have to cut back on a few luxuries for the next week to have his economy recover from this blow. "That is the women's bathing area, and I will not allow such shameless acts!"

"I didn't make the hole," Naruto protested vehemently with some help from Ranma in the area of wording. "And I certainly didn't pick this place, allowing me the opportunity to get a passing glance! And why are we here, anyway? Gonna take a bath before training?"

"Actually," Ebisu smirked and pushed his sunglasses up again. "This is where we will be training you."

"What can you possibly teach me here?" Naruto asked as he looked at the steaming waters before them. It was actually outside the hot spring building, and the scenery was almost idyllic, with a cliff rising at one corner of the wall, and a large bonzai-like tree perched on top. A wooden bridge arched over the heated spring at its narrowest, making it almost look as though it was a warm, slim river.

And to complement this, the steam rising from the heated waters shrouded it all in a thin veil of mist that made it all seem as though it was a dream.

"You will learn to walk," Ebisu smirked. "On water."

"What?"

"According to Kakashi-sensei, you've already learned to climb trees without using your hands," Ebisu continued. "This is a variation of that technique. However, unlike Tree Climbing, where you have to create the same continuous amount of chakra at the necessary place on a solid surface, with Water Walking, you need to channel only the appropriate amount of chakra into the water from you and your feet.

"It is meant as a training exercise to learn how to create a set amount of chakra … perhaps it is better if I show you …"

Ebisu moved his hands into the ram seal, and Naruto saw a light glow of blue along the man's feet. Ranma was paying special attention.

_'This is something similar to what the old troll did once,'_ Ranma commented as he and Naruto watched Ebisu step onto the water. _'Though this seems on a completely different level than finding foothold on tiny objects already floating in the water … but still somewhat similar. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to examine the technique more when I was alive …'_

By now, Ebisu was standing proudly in the middle of the spring. Ranma carefully studied not only the surface of the water, which seemed to interact with the man's feet as a shallow puddle would when stepped on, but his entire energy pathway and output.

Naruto's instinct was to immediately try and mimic his teacher, but Ranma stopped him from following through. _'Give me a few moments to figure out how to copy him before trying anything, okay?'_

Grudgingly, Naruto plopped onto the ground, and glared at the water in what could be interpreted as an intense look of concentration – which was the only reason Ebisu didn't press the issue of making him try the technique.

Minutes passed by without more than a few twitches of Naruto's brow, before the boy stood up and formed the ram seal and chakra flared under his feet.

However, unlike what Ebisu expected, he did not attempt to jump in feet first, so to speak.

Naruto only touched one foot to the water, while the other was planted solidly on the ground.

The foot on the water did not have enough chakra under it, and passed through the surface, and Ebisu expected Naruto to fall in … but the boy only cringed and shook the extreme heat from his foot as he hastily pulled it out.

"Youch!" Naruto yelped and grabbed his red, sandal-clad foot and started blowing on it after discovering that shaking it didn't help.

"Do you see now why I chose this place as your training grounds?" Ebisu asked, shaking himself from his surprise at seeing a Genin using both Tree Climbing and Water Walking at the same time to avoid falling in when the Water Walking failed.

"Incentive," Naruto answered after a few moments of silence. "The hot water is to encourage me to keep from falling in, making me want to learn faster, producing results at a quicker rate than if we had tried this somewhere cool."

Ebisu was frankly surprised with the intelligent answer he had been given, and couldn't help but recall how much Konohamaru had changed after spending barely a day with this boy … perhaps he wasn't the dim-witted ninja he made himself out to be … ninja … a ninja's life is one of deception! Naruto had grasped this concept, and must have done so early in his life, if his academic record was anything to go by!

It almost made the Special Jounin Instructor fume in anger that he had not discovered this sooner. He had been fooled by a Genin! Naruto had fooled the entire village of Konoha, a village full of people used to dealing with and recognising deception, into thinking him only a loud and dim prankster who failed three exams before becoming a Genin!

Ebisu realised that the special circumstances that led to Naruto's admission into the ranks of official shinobi should have disproven this deception, but no one seemed the wiser!

Naruto must truly be a great ninja in the making!

While Ebisu was having his revelation about what he believed Naruto had done, Naruto was on his tenth try, slowly increasing the amount of chakra he used each time, as per Ranma's instructions … by now, the foot remained buoyant for two seconds before the weight of the leg pushed the foot through.

By the time he reached his fifteenth try, he managed to keep his weight on his foot without sinking in more than to his ankle, and Naruto started complaining to Ranma about this taking too long.

_'It may be slower than you'd like, but would you rather try both feet and end up a boiled egg?'_ Ranma replied. _'Better to take it slow, and be sure of yourself than to rush into it and get hurt by overlooking something.'_

Grumbling to himself about his bad luck of having a cautious second personality, Naruto made another attempt – but contrary to Ranma's recommendations, doubled the power they had used last time, and found solid purchase on the surface of the steaming water.

_'You really are impatient, aren't you?'_ Ranma sighed. _'Might as well run with it and fine tune it later …'_

Naruto stomped his foot on the water as hard as he could, but all that happened at the current level of chakra, was the splishing and splashing of water, much like a shallow puddle. It held fast, so Naruto removed his other foot from the ground and set it on the water.

"I did it!" the blonde declared after ten consecutive seconds without falling in.

-Splosh!-

Of course, the loss of concentration caused the chakra to cease flowing and removed what foothold the boy was standing on.

"HOT! HOT-HOT-HOT-HOT-HOT!"

As Naruto hurriedly scrabbled for the bank of the spring, Ebisu caught sight of an old man sitting in front of the hole in the wall to the women's section, giggling perversely.

"I don't know who you are," Ebisu declared to the man, momentarily forgetting the puzzle that was Naruto, who had climbed out of the water. "BUT I WILL NOT FORGIVE SUCH SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOUR!"

Rushing in, Ebisu was intent on teaching the old man a lesson in decency, after all, he had an image as a nice guy to uphold and letting a pervert get his jollies on the behalf of unknowing women near him would not be tolerated.

It came as a surprise to them all when the old man was enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke that disappeared soon after, revealing the man sitting on top of a toad easily as large as a rhino.

The amphibian opened its mouth and a thick tongue shot out and knocked the Special Jounin Instructor out.

"Be quiet, man," the old man scolded nonchalantly. "You don't want to get me caught, do you?"

Naruto seeing what had been done to his appointed sensei lost his temper before Ranma could cool it down.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" the blonde demanded loudly. "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

"Ho!" the old man with red tattooed lines running from his eyes down his cheeks laughed confidently, and struck a fighting stance on top of the frog. "I'm glad you asked! Mt Myobokugama's holy Master Sennin, also known as Toad Sennin! Remember it!"

The frog disappeared in a similar cloud of smoke it had arrived in, and the man landed nimbly on his feet, which were covered in geta.

"Oy! Ero-sennin!" Naruto corrected himself in a lower shout, having been calmed somewhat by the confusion the man's introduction had caused. "That guy was supposed to train me! Why did you do this?"

"Because he got in the way of my work," the Sennin replied plainly and reached into his inner pocket. "I'm a writer, and am working on my next book! This one!"

Thrust out for Naruto's view was a book of the same series Kakashi always retreated into when he should be watching them. The ones with the explicit warning not to leave it in reach of minors printed on the back.

"You knock out my sensei for that crap?" Naruto demanded incredulously. "And how does peeping on naked women become 'work', anyway? If I did it, I might get it off as a prank, but for someone your age, it's a crime! Now how are you going to compensate me for my lost training?"

"What? Water Walking?" the old man scoffed.

"No, I just finished learning that," Naruto countered. "If you're any kind of man, then step up and take responsibility for your actions and teach me something useful!"

"I won't teach you!" the man snapped. "I hate disrespectful brats, and I don't like men! And don't try flattery, I'm not dumb enough to fall for it!"

"Oh, yea?" Naruto challenged, and stomped into the doorway to the women's changing room, where he performed his most notorious and awesome original jutsu: Oiroke No Jutsu! With a changed appearance, based on what Ranma knew of being sexy as a woman.

The revised version of Oiroke No Jutsu was shorter than the original, and sported bright red hair in a dragontail. The chest was emphasised more, and instead of being concealed only by ethereal wisps of steam, now lacy silk stockings, panties and bra barely contained the well formed female body.

The heavenly vision smirked at the Sennin before quickly pulling a towel from the pile just inside the door and almost covered herself up.

"EEEEEEEEK! PERVERT!" the delicate, yet shrill shriek that emanated from Naruto was one that Ranma had perfected as a girl when he was still alive … after all, he had a lot of exposure to panicked women in bath houses, and could replicate it quite accurately.

Not three seconds had passed since Naruto's shriek before a veritable army of towel-clad women stormed out of the hot springs, buckets of bath-supplies in hand, and looking around for the pervert.

"There he is!" Naruto _sobbed_ and pointed at the old man. "I was almost done changing when he stuck his head in, saying that a peephole wasn't enough!"

The Sennin, understanding what was going to happen next lifted his hands in defence, only to find them covered in female undergarments … realising he was about to get skinned alive, he fled as fast as his geta could carry him, followed by a horde of irate women.

Some of the elder women remained to console the "distraught" young woman, having been the apparent near-victim of a rape … and Naruto, not wanting to be found out, played the part for a short while more. Somehow, he was able to sneak off while the women who lingered were distracted by the return of the unsuccessful, angry women.

* * *

After having successfully escaped the scantily clad women at the hot springs, Naruto considered the weapon issue Ranma had brought up a couple of times during the preliminaries. The problem was that he had no idea where he could get good weapons for a reasonable price …

Maybe that Ten Ten girl would know … she seemed to have an abundance of weapons … and Fuzzybrows' sensei would know where to get weights to increase training results. But would they help him, given that he was to face their team mate in the first fight of the Third Task. Would they refuse to help him because of the Kyuubi?

_'Better get it over with,'_ Ranma encouraged. _'If you find them and ask, you'll find out … if we can't **buy** new weapons, then we'll have to **make** some with what we can find. If we're gonna use weapons, then we had better have a wider variety than what we have now …'_

"Okay," Naruto agreed. "Now, if I were a weapon-collecting kunoichi, where would I be …?"

* * *

Naruto was thrown out of nearly every weapons-smith and shop in Konoha, though thankfully not literally, before stumbling into the girl he was looking for.

He actually had to duck and weave for nearly a minute to avoid the swipes of various close-quarters weapons before Ten Ten realised he wasn't attacking her, or molesting her … the dangers of bumping into a well trained kunoichi.

While she was not entirely healed from her fight with that girl from Sand, Ten Ten was recovering nicely, thanks to light but plenty of injuries and the healing of the medic-nin … and she was surprisingly helpful in listing shops, smiths and traders where she got her hands on the more unusual weapons in her collection.

"It's not like you can win against Neji-san anyway," she explained. "So it won't hurt his chances if you get yourself a new weapon."

Though he didn't get warm and fuzzy feelings from the girl's motives, Naruto was grateful for her assistance, and left with a friendly goodbye in the form of a raspberry behind her back.

_'They won't let us get any new weapons, you know,'_ Ranma commented as they neared the first shop on the list.

_'I know … and if they let me, I either get low grade metal or inflated prices,'_ Naruto sighed.

_'But would they let **me** get good weapons?'_ Ranma pondered. _'Unless the people running the shop have been trained as ninja, they shouldn't be able to see through a Henge, right?'_

"Sometimes, I'm so brilliant it's scary," Naruto realised. Ignoring Ranma's undignified exclamation, the blonde ninja brought his hands together, and concentrated on the image he had of Ranma's male body wearing standard shinobi uniform with leaf insignia. "Henge!"

-Ding!-

Naruto cautiously entered the shop, and looked around to check if anyone gave him cold looks.

"Good afternoon, customer," a booming voice sounded throughout the shop. "How may I be of service?"

Apparently his disguise was good enough, Naruto decided with a grin.

* * *

-Thunk!-

"Ouch!"

Naruto rubbed his bruised skull where one of his newest weapons had just struck him.

Going against Ranma's advice out of excitement at getting brand new weapons, Naruto had started waving around with the seemingly least harmful of the three, and a nearly cracked skull was the result.

_'I told you that learning the basics was necessary before moving on to the flashy stuff,'_ Ranma chided in a resigned tone.

"But that would take _days_!" Naruto complained.

_'More along the lines of months to years …'_ Ranma corrected.

"I'M NOT THAT BAD AT LEARNING STUFF!"

The weapon in question was a nunchaku made of a composite metal that was supposed to be harder, stronger and lighter than the steel used to hold A Class Ninja convicts. Wrapped around the metal was a thin layer of rubber bandages, to reduce the wear on the hands. The core of the weapon was filled with lead, for more impact power … and to make up for the weight reduction in the main metal. It was Ranma's opinion that not all weapons needed a sharp edge, and the nunchaku was a very versatile weapon. This particular weapon had its own holster, which was strapped to Naruto's left thigh.

The second weapon Ranma had talked Naruto into buying, was a sai, made from the same material as the nunchaku, and only made pointy, not sharp … also a very versatile weapon according to Ranma. This one could fit unto the kunai pouch if he sacrificed three of the thrown knives.

The final weapon was one Naruto could not imagine the reasons for getting, since he already had his kunai, and they were disposable. A machete, made from regular steel, its blade about the length of Naruto's forearm, and its handle wrapped in regular bandages. Ranma said it was a handy weapon and tool, and held a certain intimidation factor that a kunai did not … apparently a large blade was scarier than a small one … The machete was not too large to carry around, and could in a pinch work as a small shield, given the width of the blade being about the same as the back of his hand. This was without a doubt a sharp weapon … the shopkeeper had proven as much by pulling a hair from his head and dropping it on the blade, cleaving it in two without more force than gravity gave the hair. As with the nunchaku, this weapon had its own holster, which was placed at Naruto's lower middle back so it could be concealed under his jacket.

_'Prove me wrong, and I'll teach you one of my father's sealed techniques …'_ Ranma baited.

"YOU'RE ON!" bellowed Naruto excitedly.

Following Ranma's instructions to the letter, Naruto started going through a slow kata, then repeated it, and repeated it, again and again.

Time passed, seconds into minutes, minutes into hours and Naruto was still at it, though somewhere in the training, he had discarded his jacket as it was getting too wet.

"Isn't there some way to speed this up?" Naruto panted as the sun was starting to set, and he was covered in bruises where his nunchaku had slipped from his control a few times to start with.

_'Only if there were more of us,'_ Ranma snorted before the comment sparked an idea in the two of them.

"More of us?" Naruto asked with a smirk.

* * *

In his office, Sandaime Hokage was taking a breather from the mountainous work pushed upon him daily, with additions because of the Chuunin Exams, and was looking in on how the training of Konoha's most surprising ninja was going.

Through his crystal ball, Sarutobi could see a veritable army of blondes going through several kata on the banks of the river that flowed through training ground seven, while the original was doing handstands on the water.

"Heh," the old ninja also known as "The Professor" chuckled as he looked on the awesome sight of dozens of Naruto training without that training being a dog pile on the original or the target. "It seems he has discovered the benefit and curse of the Kage Bunshin … though with the Kyuubi healing him, he probably can't even feel the curse …

"I look forward to your match, Naruto-kun."

* * *

For an entire week, Naruto managed to avoid the recovered Ebisu, and that week was devoted to training kata as well as Water Walking to improve on his chakra control. Ranma had commented that something had been messing with the control for the first few days after he had awoken, and it had been this that had made movement so difficult, but it had broken apart under the stress of his recovering ki, and Naruto's vast chakra supply. But Ranma still thought Naruto's control was bad, and made him practice Water Walking and various stretches and weight training – weights courtesy of Maito Gai were attached to the arms, legs and chest, each weighing between forty and ninety pounds for a grand total of two hundred and fifty pounds of weight he had to move in. The sensei of Lee was more than happy to lend Naruto Lee's unused weights, but they would have been too much to start off with, so he was given the older set instead of the current one … Lee was still recovering, but going along quickly and would be in fighting condition by the Finals even if he had no opponent.

Naruto went to sleep quite easily, and was still tired after the required six to eight hours of rest.

The memories of the scores of clones Naruto made each day had a habit of making Naruto tired, which was why after the first time, Ranma suggested waiting until he was in bed before dismissing them … the memories overlapped, and made it feel like he had practiced for over a week in a single day, but on the bright side, those memories forged new pathways into Naruto's reactions, or more commonly known as muscle memory.

The reason Naruto was so tired was not only because of his training with weights and chakra control, but also because his mind was on the verge of overload from the dozens of memories suddenly crammed into his head … sleep was a natural reaction to so many experiences over a short time, and would give the mind a few hours to sort out what was useful about the new information, and what could be fused together with nearly identical memories to get a more complete one, in other words, experience.

Any normal person attempting to use the Kage Bunshin in the same way would likely get a splitting headache after only a few clones being active for about an hour … Naruto had as many as fifty clones active all day, doing the kata Ranma instructed him in, divided among a few groups.

The stretches were for Naruto to become limber enough for some of the taijutsu moves Ranma had been famous for when he was still alive.

Ranma was a strict taskmaster, but still, staying in one place tends to make it simpler to find you for those looking, and that was the result.

One week after his self-started training regimen, Naruto was found apart from his clones by his appointed teacher.

"Naruto! Where have you been?" the bandana-wearing Special Jounin demanded. "Kakashi-san assigned me to be your instructor, and I do not allow my students to run away from their training!"

"But-"

"I won't hear it!" interrupted Ebisu. "Now show me that you've mastered Water Walking, and then we might move on to a basic elemental Jutsu of your choosing."

"But-"

"Get to work!"

Grumbling about stubborn teachers who won't listen, Naruto casually walked into the middle of the river, and sat down, glaring at the adult.

Seconds turned into minutes, and Ebisu started realising that his appointed student hadn't been lazing about like he had assumed he would.

After ten minutes of absolutely no error on Naruto's part, Ebisu admitted defeat, and called the boy back in.

"So, which basic elemental Jutsu would you like to learn?" he sighed. "There are some basic water, fire, wind and earth jutsu available to Genin that I can teach you, depending on which element you favour, of course …"

"Pfft! Basic Jutsu … what the boy needs to learn is to summon!" declared a voice Naruto had not wanted to hear since his first day of training.

"Jiraiya-san," greeted Ebisu tersely. "What are you doing here?"

"The old man called in a favour," shrugged the white-haired author of Kakashi's favourite book. "He asked me to teach him the Kuchiyose No Jutsu to better prepare him for the Finals of the Chuunin Exams. So, run along to let me teach this little upstart and be on my way. I've got lots of research to conduct and little time to do it in."

"There's no way Naruto is ready to start with Kuchiyose!" Ebisu objected. "He may have mastered Water Walking, but the control needed for Kuchiyose is beyond him at this time!"

"Excuse me?" Naruto tried to interject.

"If the kid can create hundreds of Kage Bunshin to beat up a Chuunin, then he's ready for the Kuchiyose!" countered Jiraiya.

"Fine," Ebisu surrendered, gritting his teeth. "But I will be supervising your teaching methods to make sure you don't corrupt more youth than you do with your 'books'!"

"Do I get a say in this?" Naruto asked.

"If you think you need to stay to watch, then feel free, you may learn something!" Jiraiya crowed. "I guarantee that within the month, this kid will be able to summon Gamabunta himself!"

"What's so special about frogs, anyway?" Naruto grumbled. "Can't you teach me to summon something better? Maybe a crocodile, or a wolf!"

"_Toads_ are great summons!" argued Jiraiya, only catching on to Naruto speaking after having insulted his Summoning contract. "Much better than crocodiles, wolves, slugs or snakes!"

"So I _do_ get a choice?" Naruto reasoned.

"It is customary to sign the same contract as the one who taught you," Ebisu added.

"Then why can't we get someone with a better contract to teach me?"

"Because!" argued Jiraiya hotly.

"Because what?"

"Just _because_!" finished Jiraiya. "I am one of the legendary Sennin, and I am taking you on as my apprentice until you start your Finals! And the student does what the master says! No questions asked!"

"Goodbye," Naruto snapped back and started walking towards the village.

"Where are you going?" demanded Jiraiya.

"I'm going to see 'Ji-san about getting a better contract to sign, because I'm not going to learn anything from an insane, perverted old man … I'd rather teach myself, like I did with the Kage Bunshin!"

"Wait!" Jiraiya pleaded desperately and managed to put himself between Naruto and the village. "I can't break my promise to Sarutobi-sensei! If you sign my contract and learn from me, I'll teach you the Yondaime's prize technique! Only I know it after he gave his life for the village! Not even the Sharingan can copy it!"

This perked Naruto and Ranma's interest. A Jutsu that could not be copied by the eyes of the Uchiha … that would be nice to fall back on if he ever got into a fight where his regular skills weren't enough … and all he would have to sacrifice was to sign a summoning contract for toads instead of some other animal. "Deal!"

Before Jiraiya could change his mind, Naruto had grabbed his hand and shook it, then returned to sit at the banks of the river, waiting for instruction while Ebisu smirked as he realised Jiraiya had fallen for a trap, either intentional or accidental, and would now be expected not only to teach Naruto the Kuchiyose No Jutsu, but also the infamous Jutsu the Yondaime invented and taught only his former sensei.

"Come on, old man, while the rest of us are still young!" Naruto called after Jiraiya had been standing still for nearly a minute, stunned at his own desperation.

* * *

The next morning, Naruto arrived early at the river, and created thirty clones, which he sent away to train kata for the three weapons he now had.

To pass the time, Ranma had Naruto do acrobatic exercises on the river, and if he saw a fish, he should try to grab it without getting his hands wet or falling through the surface.

This was how Jiraiya and Ebisu found the blonde boy: arms plunged into the water while the rest of him was on top, and a small pile of fish along the bank, one or two still flopping about trying to escape the oxygen-rich environment before they drowned.

"You guys want fish for breakfast?" Naruto asked lamely as he pulled his soaked arms back out of the water, clasping an especially fat fish between his hands.

"Stop playing around and get over here!" Jiraiya shouted.

Naruto smirked. The only thing Jiraiya had gotten out of him the day before was a signature in blood on the giant scroll he carried with him. The boy had managed to give the two adults the slip after that … it had after all been towards the end of the day, and Naruto had wanted to get some actual training in before bed.

The blonde boy did as told, but first he asked Ebisu to bring the back to his apartment and into the freezer so they'd keep. It was important to think of the future, and the money he saved on food by catching these fish could be put aside for a rainy day.

"Now, pay close attention, because I have no intention of showing you how to do this an unnecessary amount of times!" the white-haired old man declared.

Naruto, with Ranma paying attention to everything, watched as the white-haired Sennin bit his thumb, then went through the hand signs, and slammed his hand into the ground. From a puff of smoke came the same toad that had appeared to smack Ebisu around the first day of Naruto's training.

"Your turn, brat," Jiraiya announced, clearly annoyed that Ebisu was present, as it meant he wouldn't be able to sneak off to do some more "research" without some more annoying consequences.

Naruto sat on the ground, glaring at a pebble along the banks of the river, and supported his head on the heel of left his hand.

"What are you waiting for? Get to it-" Jiraiya started, but was interrupted by Ebisu slapping his hand over the man's mouth.

"Don't disturb him," the young man hissed. "This was how he started when I showed him Water Walking. Just give him a few moments to figure this out."

After nearly five minutes with no results, Jiraiya was ready to poke the boy with a stick to see if he was still awake.

It was at the precise moment the old man was looking for a stick that Naruto's eyes refocused on the here-and-now, and his hands went through the motions of bringing his right thumb to his mouth where he bit a hole on it, then formed the seals and slammed the flat of his hand into the ground with a cry of "Kuchiyose No Jutsu!"

A cloud of smoke erupted from the ground where Naruto was, and when it cleared, Naruto was looking down on a flailing tadpole.

"That's it?" Jiraiya asked incredulously and shoved Naruto out of the way to better examine the creature. "After all that fuss, this is all you managed to produce?"

The tadpole disappeared in a small puff of smoke.

"I'm working my way up!" Naruto objected.

"That's not how it's done!" objected Jiraiya. "You start by giving it all you've got, to summon Gamabunta, who has to accept you, and _then_ you can start summoning smaller toads!"

"To each their own," Naruto huffed stubbornly and turned his back to the Sennin while crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm going to do it my way, you can do it yours."

"Why you little-"

"Jiraiya-san," Ebisu cut in. "We should let Naruto-kun learn at his own pace … he started the same way with Water Walking, I might add."

"There is a vast difference between Water Walking and Kuchiyose No Jutsu!" Jiraiya argued.

"Perhaps, but every journey starts with a single step," Ebisu countered.

* * *

"YOU LIL' PUNK! WHAT ARE YOU DOIN' ON MY HEAD?"

Naruto didn't care that he was being yelled at by a frog, he had finally summoned the boss! It had taken him a further two weeks of trying different outputs of chakra, cutting back the amount of clones he was training with to none, and removing his weights for a few days to catch up on the energy spent unnecessarily, but he had done it! Though, he wouldn't be able to replicate the feat very often … even as he was standing on Gamabunta's head, he was feeling tired, and this was his first attempt of the day.

"JIRAIYA! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" continued the giant amphibian. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU CALL ME HERE?"

"Excuse me," Naruto called after having done a short celebratory jig. "I'm the one who summoned you here."

"VERY AMUSING, JIRAIYA!" Gamabunta growled loud enough that Naruto felt a pop in his ears. "PUTTING THIS BRAT ON MY HEAD AND TELLING HIM TO FOOL ME LIKE THAT!"

"I summoned you!" Naruto argued. "If you don't believe me, check the contract! Where is that thing, anyway? Oy, Ero-sennin! Where are you? I need that contract to show this old fart that I'm tellin' the truth!"

"OLD FART?" demanded Gamabunta, his pipe shaking in the fury of the insulted amphibian.

Naruto wanted badly to fall to his knees and apologise for his instinctual name-calling, but Ranma held him back. _'If we show fear at the slightest bit of intimidation, he'll never respect us!'_

"Yeah!" Naruto called out instead. "I summoned you, and I can send you back! The only reason I even signed your stupid contract was because Jiraiya promised me to teach me the Yondaime's most prized Jutsu if I did! I don't need you!"

"I AUGHTA SNAP YOUR HEAD OFF!" Gamabunta snarled around his pipe. "BUT I WON'T. IF YOU APOLOGISE, I'LL MAKE YOU MY UNDERLING."

"Like Hell you will, I summoned you, that means I'm your master! Not the other way around!"

For the longest time, Naruto glared into the one eye he could see of Gamabunta's and the look was returned.

"LET'S MAKE A BET INSTEAD," Gamabunta finally said. "IF YOU CAN STAY ON MY HEAD FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, YOU WIN AND I'LL ACCEPT YOU AS A TOAD MASTER … BUT IF I WIN, YOU GIVE UP ON THIS SUMMONING BUSINESS ONCE AND FOR ALL. DO WE HAVE A DEAL?"

"Why is it that no one ever just gives me what I need?" Naruto yelled. "They always feel the need to beat about the bush or try to get out of a deal by making a bet! I'm sick of it! But if that is all it takes to get you to do as I say, then let's get it on! We have a deal!"

The words had barely left Naruto's mouth before he was suddenly pressed against the knobbly, slick skin of Gamabunta, air rushing about him in a deafening roar.

Before long, the pressure was replaced by a feeling of weightlessness, and it took a moment for him to realise that the toad had jumped, and was now at its zenith and would soon return to the ground.

It was only through the use of chakra that Naruto managed to stick to Gamabunta's skin and avoid being thrown off.

When the toad had returned to the ground, it began racing around, back and forth, into the lake at the top of the waterfall, and up into the air again.

Ranma was quite certain this would have been a most interesting sight to observers … like a rodeo of some bizarre sort, but to Naruto, and Ranma who was along for the ride, it was a nightmare of chakra control, equilibrium and strength in a delicate balance. If they overcompensated for one, the others would cause him to fall off.

As the sun set, Naruto could have sworn he had spent weeks clinging to the moist skin of the giant amphibian instead of just twelve hours.

He was wet with water and sweat.

His muscles were aching more than after a full day of wearing weights and doing exercises.

And he was physically tired from having spent so much chakra in one day.

But determined not to fail, Naruto managed to cling on until the last rays of the sun had disappeared behind the horizon.

_'We did it,'_ Naruto and Ranma both thought happily before sleep claimed them and they fell off, saved only the harsh impact to the ground by the long tongue of Gamabunta, who caught them and gently deposited them on his head.

* * *

The first thought Naruto had when waking up, was _'Where am I?'_

A natural question, given that when he had last been conscious, he had been on top of a mountainous toad, and when he awoke, he was in a soft bed.

"My fish!" the blonde boy realised and sat up like a shot. "Where are my fish! They'll go bad if I don't get them into the freezer soon!"

"How troublesome," sighed someone from next to the bed.

Naruto turned and saw Shikamaru reclining in a normal wooden chair.

The walls were white, and the air smelt like antiseptics … he was in the hospital!

"Shikamaru!" Naruto bellowed. "Why am I here? How did I get here? What happened to my fish?"

"Calm down, you're in a hospital, you know," Shikamaru reminded him lazily.

"But why am I here?"

"The nurse said something about finding you outside next to a giant set of prints in the ground after what felt like an earthquake … you apparently suffered chakra exhaustion. You've been asleep for almost an entire day"

"A DAY! MY TRAINING!"

Not wasting any time, Naruto leapt from the bed and found his things tucked into a cupboard under his bedside table, all of which he quickly donned in proper order before checking that everything was there, and leaping out the window, landing next to a frog's footprint larger than the foundation of a modern apartment complex.

"That boy has always been a few tiles short of a go board," Shikamaru sighed. "Better take this basket of fruits back home before they spoil … shame Choji couldn't have them … I guess that's how it is when you overeat on pork … how troublesome …"

* * *

Though he had yet to collect on Ebisu's promise of teaching him a basic elemental jutsu, or Jiraiya's promise to teach him the Yondaime's most precious technique, Naruto felt he didn't have time to do that at the moment.

The Fight was less than a week away, and he needed to work out the kinks on what he had learned so far to progress and improve!

For this purpose, the blonde shinobi found himself a free training field out of sight of the village so he wouldn't be disturbed.

"Tajyuu Kage Bunshin No Jutsu!" yelled Naruto, immediately finding himself surrounded by over a hundred clones. "You all know what we have to do! Ready your weapons! _Attack_!"

En masse, the scores of blondes rushed the original, each pulling out different weapons the original had on his person.

But while the clones possessed all the knowledge of Naruto, they did not have Ranma in their heads … that was the privilege and torture reserved for the original.

A barrage of shuriken was repelled with the machete, or avoided altogether.

Thrown kunai with ninja wire attached were avoided and the wires cut.

Switching weapon, Naruto parried a few machete with his nunchaku, and struck out at any limbs that came within striking distance.

Another barrage of shuriken was deflected by the now spinning weapon.

An outstretched hand holding a kunai was wrapped in the short chain of the nunchaku and the clone was thrown over Naruto's shoulder into another one, dispelling them both.

With his free hand, the sai was brought into play, and blocked an incoming machete long enough for the nunchaku to dispel the owner of the cloned weapon with a solid blow to the head.

The sai was knocked out of Naruto's hand by a clone nunchaku, and the original had to cradle the appendage for a moment while fighting by the use of his remaining arm and legs.

The dropped sai was stepped on by Naruto and stuck to the underside of his sandal by use of chakra, then brought up to slash at a clone that was sneaking up from behind, puncturing the clone's unguarded side.

This was the way the sparring went for nearly an hour, when Naruto had been reduced to a panting, sweating, bruised mess and no more clones to attack him.

Though not nearly as tired as he had been after a full day of sticking to the head of a giant toad, Naruto was exhausted, and let himself sink to the ground where he had been standing, nearly impaling himself on his sai, which had been dropped again at some point.

The machete lay a few feet away, having been violently yanked away in a similar way to how Naruto had disposed of a few clones.

The only one of his three new weapons that had not been torn away from Naruto at some point was the nunchaku.

"Not good enough," Naruto panted and concentrated on catching his breath. If he didn't have his weights on, this might not have been so difficult, but as Ranma had been so insistent on stopping by the apartment to get them on the way to this place, they were all firmly attached to his person, and adding more than his own body weight to his movements. "Can't I do this without the weights? I'm still strong without them!"

_'If you mean stopping a snake with a head the size of a house, then that wasn't entirely our strength … if memory serves, the Kyuubi was pumping out some extra power because we didn't have control over our emotions. And we could do far worse than to build up our own strength instead of relying on power-ups from a demon because there may come a time when we won't have access to that power, and then we're helpless.'_

"Fine," Naruto agreed. "But can't I have another few minutes, my arms hurt …"

_'We're not injured, so what you're feeling is muscles tearing and re-knitting, which is a good thing, as it means we're on the right path! Now, get back to it before your heart rate drops to resting levels! We need to run at least two laps around the village before we start the one-on-one sparring session! We can rest tonight, no sooner!'_

Though they couldn't see it from being so preoccupied, a shadow in the distance moved from behind a tree to follow them for a ways after having observed the entire sparring session.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: I'm sorry if I got the name of Ebisu wrong, but I couldn't find any information to contradict what I learned it to be, or even any information about his last name … 

I am aware of the cliché of giving the Kage Bunshin the ability to feed information back to the creator is normally considered a Super Power … I hope I have satisfied several of my readers by reducing the ability to use it by Ebisu and Jiraiya's interruptions.

The weapons I chose for Naruto were suggested on The Fanfiction Forum, though I added the machete because I felt a long blade of some kind would round him off a little … the sai is more often than not intended for stabbing, though there are many that have been sharpened to act as blades instead of a tool for blocking or thrusting.

I am also fully aware of that I could have spread this training over several chapters instead of writing it all as one … I frankly didn't have the patience to wait that long, and would likely have changed my mind about the content a hundred times, which would have made the training even more inconsistent than it already was.


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: This fanfiction uses existing ideas, characters and or worlds, but is an independent work of art. I own nothing, hence the reason for publishing my writings here instead of in real books where I could make some money.

* * *

The massive gates of Konoha opened, slowly and fully, early in the morning. 

Civilians and ninja alike crowded along the main street to witness as a veritable convoy of palanquins and shinobi guards came through and headed for the Arena.

It was truly an exciting day, one that happened twice a year over the Elemental Countries, though rarely the same place two times in a row … the Chuunin Selection Final Exam was upon them, and with the contestants this year, it promised to be quite a show.

* * *

Naruto had been up since early light, too excited about the Exam to sleep all through the night.

But, being of the energetic excitement, Naruto ran an extra round around Konoha to get rid of it. He managed to finish in time to see the approaching procession of nobles and important people on his way back to do his kata and a few cool-down stretches.

Still having plenty of time until he had to be there, Naruto methodically strapped his machete to his lower back, shoved the nunchaku into its thigh holster after an experimental twirl, and carefully slid the pointy middle prong of his Sai under the strap of his right-hand kunai holster, and fiddled to make the outer prongs slide over the strap.

Proudly straightening his forehead protector and brushing imaginary dust off his orange jacket, Naruto decided to strut around, clear his head and see where his feet took him before going to the Arena.

Though it wasn't noticed by looking at him, Naruto was anxious over a subject related to the finals … one of his clones had the day before overheard the Sandaime discuss him with Jiraiya. It would appear that the Hyuuga had not been without a reaction to his medical assistance to the current Clan Heiress – they had simply decided to wait until they would not be accused of interfering with an official event such as the Chuunin Selection Exams by depriving one of the contestants of training time.

They had demanded that after the Exams were over, Naruto be examined for any clue as to how he came to know of tenketsu not even the ANBU anatomy charts told of – he was to be questioned, his apartment was to be examined and should it become impossible to ask him questions, his body was to be taken apart to see what else he had been keeping secret.

Ranma knew that with the skill of the two persons holding the conversation, there were only two options for why they were allowed to listen in. The first and least likely was that they were so focused on their worries that they overlooked the eavesdropping clone. The second and most likely was that they had allowed him to hear, simply because they weren't supposed to directly notify him of it.

Properly warned or not, there wasn't any physical evidence of the additional personality in Naruto's head, and the only way anyone could find out without being told was if they could read minds, something only one clan could and they most likely dared not for fear of accidentally getting tangled with the Kyuubi.

Before he knew it, Naruto found himself facing three familiar poles, one of which he had once had the pleasure of being tied to for half a day before someone remembered that he was there – how they let someone as irresponsible as Kakashi take care of some children, he never knew.

Movement drew his attention, and Naruto saw the back of a familiar figure … Hyuuga Hinata. She had apparently not noticed him yet.

"Oy! Hinata-chan!" the blonde demon-container called out happily. "What are you doing here?"

The dark-haired girl jumped in surprise at being so unexpectedly addressed and half-hid behind the nearest post. "N-Naruto-kun?"

"Something wrong?" Naruto questioned curiously and came closer. "Do you have a fever? You're all red …"

"I- I'm fine, N-Naruto-kun," stammered Hinata, and pushed her index fingers together nervously. "Th-thank you f-f-for being c-concerned about m-me … Narut-kun. But sh-shouldn't you be at the Finals?"

"Bah, that's still a while away, plenty of time," Naruto laughed confidently. "I'm just taking a stroll, and somehow ended up here … this is where I became an official Genin, you know …"

"Oh, s-sorry f-for intruding," Hinata stuttered, clearly wishing she would have less attention on her.

"No problem," Naruto crowed.

A pregnant pause came into being between the two Genin.

"Neji is really strong, right?" Naruto asked in a strangely out of place seriousness.

"Y-yes," Hinata confirmed, reluctantly. "But you might be able to beat him, Naruto-kun!" she blurted so fast she didn't have time to stutter.

"Maybe," Naruto agreed, Ranma's assessment of the boy leaking through his confidence for a moment.

"I kn-know you have a good chance, Naruto-kun," Hinata affirmed and took a moment to get a better grip on herself before continuing. "When you cheered me on, I felt stronger … I started liking myself a little more. Not many noticed anything different, but I felt like I changed, just a little bit, all thanks to you, Naruto-kun."

"I do have a way of influencing people," grinned Naruto. While that may be true, not all changes were for the better, and he realised it. "But do you think I'm as strong as I _pretend_ to be?"

"I don't think you pretend to be strong," Hinata protested meekly, but with a hint of something else. "Even when you fail and fall, you have the strength to get back up. You're not perfect, true, but I think you're a very strong person, Naruto-kun."

Ranma's smirk could almost be felt by Naruto as Hinata realised what she had said and blushed again, pulling a little more behind the wooden pole.

"Thanks, Hinata-chan," Naruto boasted, spirits soaring higher than moments before when he had felt some doubt about whether all his training would be enough. "I was a little depressed just then, but now I feel great! You know what, I-"

_'Lover-boy, we'll be late if we don't hurry up,'_ Ranma interrupted, knowingly cutting off a description of the teenage girl that might have hurt her feelings.

"-Er … I like you!" Naruto finished hurriedly, having forgotten the gist of how he thought about her before, but remembering the end of the sentence anyway – and it was better to deliver the summary of his forgotten statement than nothing at all. "Gotta go or I'll be late!"

As Naruto ran away, he didn't see the red blush bright enough to be mistaken for a sunset, decorating the face of his conversational partner.

* * *

At the Arena, the audience crowded into the numerous seats in the stands were getting antsy.

Two of the contestants had not shown up, yet.

Naruto was to fight Neji at the beginning, so there was still plenty of time for them to show up … although, for some reason, the match-ups had changed some from what they had been shown after the preliminaries. The guy dressed like a mummy in winter was completely removed from the list, and Naruto idly wondered if this was a result of being late, and why they hadn't taken Sasuke's name off if that was the case. Ranma reasoned that something must have happened to prevent the Sound-nin from competing, and with enough warning for the judge to be notified and given enough time to scratch him off the list.

"You guys are the stars," declared the proctor, a new one for some reason, and turned away from the seven present ninja to chew on his toothpick. "Stop looking around and face the customers."

_'Be careful with what you use against Neji,'_ Ranma cautioned. _'People are already suspicious about our sudden leap in skill, anything Ebisu and Jiraiya can't claim they taught us would only add to it and might lead to a lynching because some dumb idiots think our skill is because of the big fluffy animal in our stomach.'_

_'I know,'_ Naruto groaned, accidentally letting a little sound escape, which he quickly disguised as a result of stretching a little.

"Thank you, everyone, for coming to the Hidden Leaf Chuunin Selection Exam!" the old but strong voice of the Sandaime Hokage rang out across the Arena. "We will now start the Main Tournament matches. Between the eight participants that made it through the preliminaries … please stay and watch to the end!"

"What will happen if Sasuke doesn't make it in time?" Naruto asked the judge only loud enough to be heard by the toothpick-chewing man.

The man looked back at him lazily. "If he doesn't make it here by the time of his match, he'll receive a default loss."

_'This doesn't feel right, Sasuke would have been here even if he had to pull himself by his fingers,'_ Naruto thought, troubled by his rival's tardiness.

"Okay, listen closely," called out the decidedly healthier judge than the last. "The arena might be different, but the same rules as the preliminaries apply. There are no rules. You will fight until death, surrender or until I decide one of you can't continue. You will cease any attacks if I call an end to the match, is that understood? Good. First match, Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Neji, you stay while the rest of you go to the waiting room."

As Naruto waited for the match to start, he caught a glimpse of someone getting knocked down among the audience. Hinata and Kiba were there, and Hinata was frowning at the person on her right, who was frantically trying to straighten out his nose. Kiba was clearly shocked, and Akamaru didn't seem to know what to do with himself.

_'I wonder who hit that guy, and why …'_ Naruto mused.

_'I might venture a guess, but don't want to reveal it to you yet,'_ Ranma commented smugly. _'Focus on our opponent rather than the stands.'_

"Do you have something to say?" Neji asked confidently.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Naruto blurted before Ranma could restrain him. "You needlessly injured and hurt Hinata-chan, your _cousin_, and I'll repay you what she couldn't ... with interests."

"You seem anxious to fight, so let's just BEGIN!" declared the judge, and retreated to a safe distance from most jutsu.

"I'll enjoy making you face up to reality," announced Neji as he slid into a lazy stance with his left hand leading towards Naruto.

Normally, when an experienced fighter goes against a Hyuuga, they realise that fighting up close is tantamount to suicide, and choose to fight at a distance in the hopes that something gets through.

Naruto had Ranma, who would be able to direct him towards undoing a lot of the damage done by closing the tenketsu – but that was one of the main points of the training Naruto had been made to go through, so he would have the skills to evade most of the damage on his own, and get in a few retaliatory strikes while he was at it.

Rushing in, making most of the ninja presently in the stands groaned at his fatal mistake, Naruto launched a series of punches and kicks, most of which were blocked.

The counter strike was swift, all anyone could see was a blur as Neji struck Naruto's now guarding forearms.

Despite how he was supposed to be unable to use his arms, Naruto lowered them and grinned.

Silence stretched between the two teens, and without taking his eyes off Neji, Naruto unzipped his jacket, and tossed it into a tree.

Underneath, a thick, black vest was seen, one that some recognised immediately as a weighted vest. On his forearms were more weights, and as shown by lifting the leg of his pants, he had them there as well.

The weights on Naruto's forearms were covered in finger-wide dents, but the skin underneath was completely unharmed, proven by removing the weights and tossing them under the same tree as the jacket. Either Neji had overlooked the extra padding in looking for the tenketsu, or he had miscalculated the thickness when attacking, but neither mattered, as the Hyuuga prodigy had been made to look a fool by the "dead-last" of that year's graduating class.

Over the last days of his training, Naruto had increased the weight for his training. He now carried a total of four hundred pounds with him, and he hardly felt it any more, which made it very strange to move once the weights were removed, making a nice depression in the dirt under the tree where they were thrown.

"Should we try again?" Naruto asked mockingly, and formed the hand seal his friends came to expect of him. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

A dozen solid clones sprang into existence, and rushed Neji while the real one remained out of reach.

Neji saw this action, and through the hail of shuriken and kunai, and the storm of sai and machete, he could see no other escape than the one he took.

"Kaiten!" a spinning dome of chakra burst into being, throwing away the projectile weapons, and sweeping the attacking clones off their feet several metres from where they had been, and promptly disappeared in small puffs of smoke.

_'Hmm … chakra forced out in all directions from all over the body, while spinning around, thus creating a shield that doesn't just stop, but also deflects attacks to such a degree that the attacks hurt the attacker,'_ Ranma analysed. _'Shouldn't be too difficult to copy … actually, this thing is ideal for those with lots of chakra, imagination and little pin-point control …'_

"Impressive," Naruto complimented as the glowing dome dissipated, being reabsorbed into its caster. Still, being confident based on Ranma's assessment, he couldn't help but going a little bit further to provoke a reaction out of his opponent. "I bet I could learn that inside a day."

Achieving a deepened frown was more than enough of a victory for Naruto as he smirked fearlessly. Getting a warning from Ranma about Neji preparing for action, the blonde pulled out the one weapon he had not used yet … his nunchaku.

"You're within my field of divination," Neji announced, and snorted at the choice of weapons before exploding into action. "Hakke Rokujūyon Sho!"

The extra second of preparation Naruto was given before the attack was enough time to get the weapon moving, and by an application of the limited Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken Ranma had been teaching him, was able to deflect the attacks on most of his vital points, though some of the less important tenketsu were closed.

Once the attack was over, Neji cradled his hands, which had surprisingly only gotten heavily bruised instead of broken by the metal weapon containing a lead core. Even with the padding around it, they should have done extensive damage.

Naruto had fallen as a result of the furious attack, but slowly climbed back to his feet.

Already, a gentle pressure of ki was manipulating the closed tenketsu to reopen within Naruto's body, and the nunchaku was secured in his hand.

Though he could hardly move his arms or legs, Naruto struggled against his recovering body's desire to drop to the ground again, just to rub it in the Hyuuga prodigy's face that he had endured one of the Hyuuga clan's most infamous attacks, said to render any victim completely useless or dead.

"That the best you got?" Naruto taunted, though the slight breathlessness stole away a great deal of the effect.

"No," Neji countered. "Even with the few tenketsu I closed, you can't form chakra to fight me. You should surrender now, while you're still capable of walking out on your own."

"Not gonna happen," Naruto returned. Already, he could feel his mobility returning. "You're still going to pay for what you did to Hinata-chan."

"Proctor," Neji called. "You should end the match now, because I intend on killing him if we continue."

"You talk too much!" Naruto roared, feeling immensely insulted at the insinuation that he couldn't defend himself. "Bakusei Tenketsu!"

Dirt bulged upwards towards Neji, before erupting into a spray of dust, dirt and rock, hiding the dark-haired boy from sight.

Ignoring Ranma's protests, Naruto copied the moves Ranma had noted down from Neji's last attack, using his limited Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken and his nunchaku to attack Neji.

Neji saw an attack coming after getting an eye-full of dust, but was far from prepared to be faced with a rough, bastardised version of the Hyuuga Clan's prized jutsu, and so only managed to block half of the strikes, the rest dealt blunt force damage to his body, resulting in two closed tenketsu in the right arm, a broken left clavicle, a cracked lower right rib and a ruptured spleen.

Even in his pain, Neji tried to get back up, but fell down.

Naruto had not gotten away from his attack without injury … several muscles had torn, but by the time he stopped, most of them had healed in such a way to allow repeated performance of those moves with better ease.

The proctor declared Naruto the winner after a quick examination, and Neji was hurried off by a team of medic-nin to patch him up before the injuries became too dangerous to handle.

* * *

Ignoring the outraged, fearful or awed looks he was sent, Naruto gathered up his things and strutted through the door leading to the waiting room for the contestants, a room that happened to have one wall less than normal, as it was facing the arena and was only guarded by a rail, allowing the waiting contestants to witness the match going on below.

Sure, there was excitement, as the one least likely to win had proven to be better than assumed, but the surprise of seeing someone other than a Hyuuga pulling off that dreaded technique kept those in the know about the complexity of it silent.

Even in the waiting room, Naruto confidently marched up to the railing, ignoring the shocked looks his fellow Konoha Genin sent him. It didn't matter, though, because he had avenged Hinata for the humiliation and injuries she suffered, as he had promised.

_'That was very stupid,'_ Ranma chided. _'They already suspected something wasn't right, and you just had to go ahead and remove all doubt even against my protests! We're lucky we haven't been arrested by ANBU yet! As a matter of fact, I'm sure the moment the exam is over, they'll be crawling out of the woodwork to get us!'_

Naruto ignored the rant beyond this point, and watched the proctor.

Sasuke had yet to show up, and a great deal of the crowd was getting antsy.

Had this been any other contestant, the match would have been declared an automatic disqualification for the missing party, but not for Uchiha Sasuke … it didn't really surprise Naruto when after a few minutes of waiting, a declaration of postponing Sasuke's fight against Gaara was made.

Naruto still found it annoying, and looked around what he could see of the stands.

Hinata was easy to pick out … sitting next to a boy with a puppy on his head and with a guy covering his nose on the other side. Standing next to Kiba was a boy in green, eagerly demonstrating to the two teens how much he had healed … Rock Lee.

Behind the boy stood Maito Gai, the leader of Team Gai, which included Lee, Neji and Ten Ten … and he was looking directly into the waiting room, and there was no doubt about whom he was looking at, even more than a hundred metres away. Gai was examining Naruto, looking at him in a new light after having witnessed or heard about the fight.

Lee suddenly struck a good-guy pose, and proclaimed loud enough to be heard over the hundreds of men and women talking about the turn of events; "AND IF I CAN'T DO THAT, I'LL CARRY MORE WEIGHT AND RUN FIVE HUNDRED LAPS AROUND KONOHA ON MY HANDS!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"And now, the next match is between Aburame Shino and Kankuro!" the proctor continued from his announcement about Sasuke, having been forced to wait until the din died down, which Lee and Gai's interplay had served to do. "Come down!"

"… I forfeit," Kankuro announced without even leaving the waiting room. This also served to create a bit of a stir. It was very rare for a Chuunin-hopeful to surrender at such a time and place … at this point, most of the hopefuls were so keyed up that they jumped in without consideration for strategy or thought of their own mortality.

If someone didn't feel confident about their ability, they normally had the good sense to give up before the final match, so the match-ups could be modified accordingly.

The blonde Sand kunoichi snorted and whipped out her fan, creating a gust of wind, which she gently floated down into the Arena on with her open fan beneath her.

Naruto, recalling that Shikamaru was supposed to fight her, decided to encourage the seemingly uncertain boy in whatever decision he made with a friendly pat on the back.

Unfortunately, the added weight on his arm and his forgetting to compensate for it made him shove the Nara boy over the railing. Ranma could have warned Naruto of the impending mistake, but he was a mite annoyed at the boy for ignoring his protests while fighting Neji, and decided it would be good for the blonde to see what his rash decisions could lead to … though he hadn't meant for Shikamaru to fall over the side and four metres down to the ground. 

"Sorry!" Naruto called after the still form of Shikamaru lying on his back on the ground.

Temari, the kunoichi that was ready to fight, did not like the slacking her opponent was affording himself, and made her displeasure clear by slashing her fan at him, creating a veritable explosion of air and dust where Shikamaru had been reclining.

As the dust settled, Shikamaru was found above the blast zone, standing casually on a pair of kunai he had stabbed into the wall.

Ranma was working overtime registering the attacks and moves the pair of fighters used as Shikamaru went from a very long streak of dodging and evading to attacking. Most of those wind attacks would require a fan of some sort to copy, but that was what a combination of clones and transformation was for. The only reason he had Naruto get real weapons instead of transforming some clones into them, was that unlike clones, real weapons could take some punishment before breaking apart, leaving a more reliable tool than one that would break apart into smoke after one good hit.

When Shikamaru surrendered after having been on the verge of victory, Ranma remarked that there was little doubt the boy would get promoted, even if he didn't win … the mark of a good leader is to know when to give up and save the lives of his team mates or members.

It showed good planning and environment awareness when Shikamaru used the gopher-sized tunnel Naruto had created with his Bakusai Tenketsu to sneak in his shadow through the large opening and out the finger-thick hole behind Temari.

As Ranma was explaining this to Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi arrived in the middle of the Arena, in a swirl of green leaves. Ranma got a good look on how the technique was supposed to look on arrival, but advised against trying it until they had a look at the beginning, because a lot could change between point A and B.

Not many moments later, after the proctor had confirmed to the pair that Sasuke's fight had been postponed, and that they were right on time, Ranma got to see the departure end of the technique, and confirmed that there were inconsistencies between the start and finish … inconsistencies that he saw no need for, and would try to clean up before he was prepared to allow Naruto to learn it.

Naruto's behaviour had set them back a little in trust, and Ranma would need a lot of convincing to teach him much else, especially the "sealed" techniques, until the blonde boy could show some responsibility in the use of his knowledge.

Kakashi's departure was less spectacular than his arrival, but that could be because there was less mass to transport.

The fight between Sasuke and Gaara was an interesting sight to behold … the last Konoha Uchiha had improved a great deal in terms of strength and speed, something that could not be as easily copied instantly like Lee's fighting style … but he was still not at Lee's level and after a few series of attacks started panting like a dog and sweating like a pig.

What Ranma found impressive was when the raven-haired boy ran up a wall, lit his right hand with lightning and ran back down, digging a trench where the hand _nearly_ made contact … with some improvements and restrictions on chakra put into it, that technique could be at least half decent, in his opinion.

As Sasuke's lightning-covered hand dug into the thick sand cocoon Gaara had surrounded himself in, Ranma detected two things, both disconcerting.

The first thing was that Gaara, for a brief moment, became feral and leaked killer intent enough to freeze those with a weak will.

The second was that Naruto started to suddenly feel tired, when moments earlier, he had been so full of energy that he was practically bouncing in place.

As Naruto looked around, he confirmed that he wasn't the only one getting tired, which set off red flags with Ranma, and made Naruto form the ram seal to dispel the illusion forced upon them. "Kai!"

Almost as soon as the illusion had been neutralised in Naruto's system, an explosion rang out from the edge of Konoha.

All of these variables could only lead to one possible conclusion … Konoha was under attack.

* * *

Author's Notes: I'm actually very irate at the moment. Not long after posting the previous chapter, I had finished the outlines for the Epilogue of TBP, the next chapter for CoP and was beginning the next one for this story, when the power went out. Okay, no problem, I turned the computer back on when the power returned and was about to continue my writing when I discovered a problem … nothing had been saved, even though I repeatedly did so – in fact, I make it a point to save after the end of each sentence or if I look away from the screen for a little while. As it turns out, there was a problem with something called the PRO11.MSI, which was needed to "convert" the files into text … without it, the additional files I had saved the text on would only show a blank page. I went about fixing the problem, and when I did … once again it showed me a blank page instead of the text I had spent days writing (combined, over ten pages of text) and was actually satisfied with how turned out. Thus the reason I am irate. I had to rewrite everything from scratch when I didn't remember half of what I'd written!

I know I'm a bastard (not literally, as I was planned, conceived and born within wedlock of several years) for leaving such a cliff-hanger, but as my writing style has a way of evening things out to a more balanced feel, I need to do things like this to increase the drama

Yes, you read correctly. Hinata decked a Chuunin for badmouthing Naruto … in canon, she just looks at them angrily, but with the changes from canon, I decided to have her react a little more actively.

Some may have noticed that Naruto used the Bakusai Tenketsu without Ranma having gotten that far in his training … this is a hint about their merging into one being having begun. The version used was different from the canon Ranma version, but there has to be some way of manipulating where the explosion takes place, even if canon never got around to showing examples of it(that I remember).


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 05

* * *

Even though he was standing in the middle of it, Naruto thought it all seemed like a dream.

Only moments ago, he had been examining a one-on-one battle between the two biggest attractions in the Tournament, and now a full-blown battle was raging within the walls of the Arena.

The moment the genjutsu had been cast, various experienced forms of ANBU and shinobi rushed out to protect their customers from attack – provided they hadn't gotten caught in the illusion.

Ninja from Sand and Sound stood up in the crowds and removed their disguises before attacking the nearest Leaf nin.

An ANBU cut clear through a pair of Sand-nin as he rushed to save the Hokage, who was battling the Kazekage – and the Kazekage turned out to have been Orochimaru in disguise.

Gaara's brother and sister grabbed the disoriented and injured redhead while making their escape, ninja style over the wall and across the rooftops beyond.

In the distance, Naruto could see the heads of three huge snakes with what looked like bibs tied to their heads.

As the battle raged, Naruto noticed that Sasuke took off after Gaara, seemingly without any encouragement from anyone.

Naruto was brought out of his shocked thoughts by the sound of meat and bone impacting against hard and unyielding stone.

"Naruto-kun!" a loud voice called. "A battle-field is no place for philosophy, we are under attack! I'll defeat more enemies than you can! And if I can't do that, I'll do five thousand hits on the training log! Yosh!"

Naruto turned to see Lee rushing off to fight the next group of ninja, none of whom were Genin, and far more experienced … none of them stood a chance. Along the wall behind him, a headless ninja in Sand uniform lay crumbled, bleeding profusely out the gaping wound where arguably the most vital body part was missing.

_'Make up your mind,'_ Ranma chimed in. _'Stay here and fight, or follow Sasuke to make sure he doesn't get his spoiled ass handed to him.'_

"Can't let the bastard get killed," Naruto decided. "Sakura would tear my head off."

Biting a hole in his thumb, Naruto slammed it into the ground.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" a cloud erupted from where he had struck the ground, and as it cleared, two bull-sized toads with dual swords on their backs sat ready. Had Ranma not helped him learn the summoning jutsu, Naruto might have summoned the wrong toad instead of the ones he had been looking for – who knows, he could have summoned Gamagichi or Gamabunta.

"What's up, Boss?" one of them asked.

"Konoha is under attack by Sand and Sound, and I'm gonna follow my team-mate, who is chasing a trio of Sand-nin," Naruto explained. "I don't know you very well, but you gave me the impression that this was the sort of thing you'd enjoy – I need you to make sure I won't get stopped by an enemy, would you do that?"

"Sure thing, Boss," the other toad croaked deeply. "You summoned us, it's your decision."

"Then let's go!" grinned Naruto and jumped out of the room.

The two toads followed closely behind and on either side as he ran across the Arena, up the wall and leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

As he got a better look, Naruto realised that there weren't three giant snakes rampaging through the village, but a three-headed serpent, on top of which landed a toad nearly as big as Gamabunta, also carrying a pair of swords on its back.

During the chase through Konoha, the two toads darted out of the way now and again, followed by the sounds of a brief skirmish, and returned, slashing red liquid from their swords before sheathing them again and catching up with Naruto. At one point, Naruto found himself blocked off from his prey by a quartet of Sound-nin … the two toads ran ahead of Naruto and removed the threat so fast the boy hardly noticed until the enemy ninja were falling to pieces … literally.

_'Maybe we could get these guys to show us a few things when this invasion's over,'_ commented Ranma as they cleared the wall surrounding the village.

Again, the toads abandoned his side for a moment, but were back as he landed on his first tree branch.

Leaping from tree to tree, Naruto briefly wondered why this was happening.

Everything had seemed fine until Gaara's fight – why would anyone attack Konoha?

Would everyone be okay?

More importantly, would Ichiraku's Ramen stand survive the attack?

Leaping from branch to branch, Naruto eventually heard signs of fighting ahead.

Turning the few degrees to the left Naruto honed in on the battle that took place, and found Shino fighting Kankuro.

The boy seemed to have it well in hand, so he signalled for the toads to ignore them and follow him, as he continued to track Sasuke, Temari and Gaara.

A little further along, Ranma warned Naruto about some upcoming traps, the blonde boy leapt higher into the trees and went above them, followed by the toads who had also discovered the explosive tags attached to the trunks in a box pattern that would most likely trigger if anyone came in between them … clever. Hastily put up, but clever nonetheless.

It took a few more minutes to notice the signs of another battle ahead, and once he detected it, Naruto sped up in its direction.

From the sounds of it, Sasuke was not doing well.

The toads, acting on the information Naruto gave them on the situation, rushed in to take care of the redheaded teen - and were stopped by the sand, caught by the sand and crushed by the sand, dispelling them – Naruto winced, they would not forget that, and this would likely make them less cooperative when he summoned one of them again, they might not want to teach him their sword moves!

_'Clone,'_ Ranma recommended. _'And just so you're warned, if I sense something coming that you do not, I'll take control and get us away.'_

Crossing his hands in a familiar hand seal, Naruto produced two clones, one of whom he handed an old kunai with five explosive tags attached, and went into hiding – this would be loud.

The second clone darted out and swept Sasuke away, incidentally saving him from being crushed by the monstrous limb of sand that covered Gaara's arm and most of his right side.

Like the original, the clone carrying a protesting Sasuke went into hiding several trees away.

The armed clone, however, darted in and let himself to be caught in Gaara's grotesque grip, and crushed.

At first, there was a moment of eerie silence.

Naruto looked up from his hiding place in a hastily dug hollow under a huge tree, and hurriedly stuffed his dirt-covered fingers in his ears. There were more important things to worry about than hygiene at the moment.

Then the light brightened, flaring up to near blinding levels even in Naruto's hiding place, and a deep noise roared along like a sandstorm, enveloping objects and shaking them thoroughly.

And silence returned.

Peering out of his hole, Naruto saw the destruction created by his explosive notes.

Starting from Gaara's spot, the trees closest to him were burnt to a crisp and knocked over. The next ones were simply ripped out by the roots and were leaning against the next row of trees … provided they could carry them – one or two trees had fallen on weaker trees and snapped them in two or stripped them of branches on one side.

In the middle stood Gaara, bleeding profusely from his right arm, but otherwise unharmed, though he looked dizzy and was undoubtedly bothered by a strong ringing in his ears.

Draped across one of the felled trees was Temari, who seemed to have escaped the onslaught of pressure and heat relatively unscathed.

_'That guy sure can take a beating,'_ Naruto commented.

_'Not really, his sand took most of the damage,'_ Ranma corrected. _'Look at the ground, the sand's receding, as though it's just been up to protect him.'_

Gaara, snapping out of the shock and daze of the explosion, started snickering.

The snickering escalated into chuckles, and in a short while, he was up to insane, mentally unstable laughter. _'He's snapped.'_ Ranma observed.

Removing his jacket, Naruto quickly undid the straps holding his weights in place, and for safekeeping stuffed them all under the tree where he had hidden, leaving him in his black undershirt, orange pants, his blue sandals, with his weapons in place.

"This guy's lost all his marbles," Naruto agreed with Ranma as the redheaded boy continued his laughter and incoherent ranting about confirming his existence and letting '_him'_ out. "Who needs to be let out? Seems more like someone needs to be locked in …"

Sand started pouring _out_ of the ground.

Naruto had no idea so much sand could be found under the heavy forest.

More and more, the silicate matter poured out, surrounding and burying Gaara, who seemed to have gone into a trance.

Taking a more distinctive form, two trunks of sand rose and merged to split again. One went backwards, while the fatter one went up, thinning out in a pear-like shape that sprouted three more protrusions until a bipedal body with a long tail stood towering above the forest.

"A raccoon?" Naruto guessed as he looked up at the giant form. "With a pimple?"

_'Do you need glasses?'_ Ranma snapped. _'That's not a pimple, it's Gaara! And we need to move – NOW!'_

As Naruto did what Ranma told him, one of the massive feet smashed into the ground where the pair had been standing a moment earlier.

"GAAH! STAND STILL WILL YOU?" the shrill, insane voice of the beast bellowed. "I'M FINALLY FREE! I'M GONNA SQUISH YOU, PUNY HUMAN, AND THEN I'LL FIND SOME MORE!"

Ranma, apologising to Naruto for what he was about to do, claimed control of Naruto's body, and used the direct copy of the transport technique Kakashi had unwittingly taught him – not having had time to refine or improve it first.

"WHERE'D HE GO?" the giant sand raccoon shrieked and lifted his feet to check if he'd accidentally stepped on him without knowing or getting to enjoy it. Not finding any trace of him, the raccoon looked towards Konohagakure, a clear source of squishable humans to step on _intentionally_. "ALL RIGHT! LET THE PARTY BEGIN!"

Several hundred metres above the giant beast, Ranma, in control of Naruto's body, was rapidly descending, the air screaming around him.

_'If entering a trance brings this creature out,'_ Ranma reasoned. _'Then waking him up should end this.'_

Ignoring the terrified screams of Naruto in his head, Ranma pulled loose his machete from his lower back, and entered a stance he had used against him more times than he'd like to remember.

"Have at thee," the whisker-faced boy nostalgically intoned. This technique simply wouldn't be the same without such a statement.

-WHUMP!-

The sand creature paused in mid-step as he felt something wrong.

He was lighter for some reason.

Glancing back, he saw his tail disintegrating into a formless mass of sand.

This was quite an unusual thing to experience.

And like most people who have a spontaneous amputation, huge elemental beasts are confused at first.

Then the pain kicks in as the mind processes what has happened.

"GAAAARGH!" the creature shrieked in a bellow that was heard throughout the country, and made those fighting in Konoha shield their ears as they looked up to witness what was happening.

A little more, nothing more than a sliver, fell off the raccoon.

Then some more, and more, and more.

Piece by piece, the huge being fell apart, like a deck of cards set on end, sliced apart like a loaf of bread.

Had the raccoon not been in pain from having so much removed from his conscious control, he might have registered someone impacting Gaara from above with just enough force to knock the boy to his senses.

Alas, as the sand fell apart, all the raccoon could do was screech.

Ranma relinquished control to Naruto, and the boy fell into a falling pile of sand, lessening the effects of his already slowed fall. A few bones bruised, but were swiftly healed.

Below him, Gaara stared up into space, in shock because of the pain he was feeling.

"That was stupid," Naruto grunted at the redhead, struggling for a moment to get on top of the sand instead of sinking into it.

Gaara turned silently, his eyes wide as he stared at him in surprise.

"You had no control over that thing," Naruto continued, relaying information from Ranma. "Are you really that heartless, releasing an uncontrollable beast on hundreds, even thousands of innocent human beings?"

Gaara made no move to argue or confirm this allegation, but a pile of sand rose from the ground, wobbling for a moment and then fell apart.

"And you tired yourself out," continued Naruto. "You've got to learn to pace yourself in a fight … always save some energy for later, because there's no guarantee that using everything at once will let you win.

"This village has already been attacked by a giant beast, and one man managed to defeat it … what made you think your beast would be any different? Because you carried it? Big deal, I carry the Kyuubi no Kitsune, but haven't used it even once in this fight, because I'm not gonna rely on someone else to make me powerful enough to defend my precious ones – and as the future Hokage, I intend on protecting Konoha with my life if need be … that is my nindo."

During his tirade, Naruto saw a small change in Gaara's eyes. He didn't really know what he was rambling on about … things were really just pouring out … maybe he hit his head in his landing? Concussion was supposed to cause one to ramble on about incoherent subjects.

He realised dimly that he had touched on his beliefs, though.

Before any more conversation took place, a black blur and a purple blur appeared on either side of Gaara and moving rapidly on, headed away from battle and out of the country. The blurs were Kankuro and Temari, Ranma informed Naruto – and they had shown genuine concern for their injured team-mate … camaraderie, it was a beautiful thing …

Taking over for a moment, Ranma ducked Naruto's head out of the way of a fist.

"Naruto!" roared an irate Sakura. "You let an enemy escape!"

Then again, team-mates could also be the death of one …

A little behind Sakura, Shikamaru was standing idly by, watching an ugly little dog dig in the sand. Curiously enough, the dog wore a forehead protector with the Lead symbol on it … was it from Kiba's clan? What was it digging for?

"Hi, Sakura," Naruto greeted casually, as though she hadn't just tried to take his head off or yelled at him. "How goes the battle? Exactly how many enemy ninja have _you_ repelled lately?"

"Oy, a little help here, I'm only a cute little puppy," called a deep, gravel-like and serious voice. Naruto's eye twitched momentarily as he realised the dog was a _talking_ dog – one that had just referred to itself as a cute little puppy, only one of which was true, and it wasn't the first or last description.

_'It must be a Summoned creature,'_ Ranma reasoned. _'They seem capable of speech and cognitive thought … though I'm questioning its intelligence if it thinks it's young or cute.'_

Looking down a bit from the delusional dog, Naruto saw a black head of hair peeking out of the sand.

"Sasuke-kun!" shrieked Sakura in panic and appeared at the unconscious boy's side faster than the instant transportation technique Ranma had used.

Grumbling lowly at not being appreciated, Naruto started looking for landmarks … he still had his jacket and weights to recover, and they could be buried anywhere.

* * *

When Naruto had recovered his property from the sand, after several long minutes of searching and creating Shadow Clones to help, Sakura had finished digging out Sasuke, who had a bump on his head and a mouthful of sand to show for his fight and pursuit.

Naturally, Sakura jumped to the conclusion that Sasuke had destroyed the "demon" and been buried in his exhaustion as the creature fell to pieces, and that Naruto's contribution had been to watch as the three Sand-nin made their escape. Ranma didn't need to tell Naruto to shut up before he said something he might regret, and thus left the girl to her beliefs.

Of course, Naruto had "volunteered" to help carry Sasuke to the hospital … Shikamaru had also "volunteered", and was careful about expressing his displeasure about it.

Sakura had followed Naruto and Shikamaru as they shouldered half of Sasuke's weight each, worrying that the bruise on his head was an indication of something more serious, regardless of what either conscious boy told her. Strangely enough, the girl did not appear to pitch in on any work, but Ranma advised Naruto not to question this as it would only lead to needless violence and pain … _their_ pain.

The distance they had all covered to get to the fight had been surprisingly long for what had felt like a short run at the time, and needing to assist Sasuke all the way was no easy task, especially for Naruto, who had his weights back on. It wasn't to say Sasuke was heavy, just cumbersome.

By the time the quartet and dog arrived in the village, the fighting was over, nearly half the village stood ablaze, and those ninja not injured were either helping the civilians return from hiding, or were zipping around using whatever means they had to put out the fires.

A crack ran across the face of the Sandaime Hokage's mountain portrait, giving Naruto a bad feeling about what else had happened.

Upon entering the hospital, Naruto felt he'd rather be back in battle; at least battle was calmer and more organised.

Injured ninja and civilians were strewn around along the walls – some were even standing.

Doctors and nurses ran back and forth, doing their best to help.

Worried friends and relatives of the injured were harassing the doctors about when they'd have time for them.

It almost surprised Naruto that there wasn't a wall of corpses stacked along the corridor.

The moment a nurse spotted Sasuke, however, three doctors started competing about which of them would have the honour of treating him, while Sakura worriedly followed him.

Naruto saw no further need for him to remain.

He had just stepped outside when he was stopped by Jiraiya, who appeared before him in a blur.

"Come with me," the white-haired pervert stated gravely, and started running up the outside wall of the hospital.

Naruto did as asked, and stopped under the window Jiraiya had stopped next to. Looking inside, Naruto saw a familiar tuft of white beard poke out of a mask connected to a metal lung machine, while a team of doctors were hurrying back and forth in the room.

"He'll survive if they're fast enough," Jiraiya assured. "But he'll never walk again. Before he was put under sedation, he gave the two of us a final mission … we are going out to find the Godaime Hokage, and drag her back by her pigtails if necessary."

"The old man asked for me to do it?" Naruto questioned sceptically.

"Yes," confirmed Jiraiya. "We leave as soon as possible, so you'd better hurry home and pack, I'll be waiting for you at the East Gate."

With his message delivered, the old pervert disappeared in a blur of speed to make his own preparations.

Dropping down to the ground, Naruto started for his apartment … the old man wanted him out of the village for some reason, and arranged for him to come on that mission, Ranma didn't even have to point this out … the question remained: why was it necessary to do that?

As he was thinking this over, he nearly ran into Hinata, who was emerging from behind a corner.

"Naruto-kun," she greeted in a half-timid manner. Her face was still lit up in a blush, though.

"Hinata-chan," Naruto returned. "Are you okay? You weren't hurt in the invasion, right?"

"I'm fine, Naruto-kun," Hinata replied.

"Anyone hurt at all?"

"Only Shino-kun was hurt, Naruto-kun," Hinata answered sadly. "He was poisoned, but his family is treating him now. He'll be fine. Are you doing anything?" as the girl asked this, her face nearly exploded into bright red, as if she had said something completely obscene without realising it.

"I'm packing for a trip," confessed Naruto. "The old man sent me on a mission, but I don't know if I'm supposed to talk about it."

"I understand, Naruto-kun," said Hinata. "How long will you be gone?"

"Don't know," Naruto sighed. "Could be anything from an hour to a few months. I haven't been told all the details yet."

"Oh," a deflated Hinata moaned.

"I'd better go, don't want the old pervert to get impatient," Naruto briefly hugged Hinata in what he hoped was a friendly manner, and ran away. "See you later, Hinata-chan!"

For the second time that day, Naruto ran off, not knowing that he'd left behind a red-glowing girl that could have replaced the sunset in radiance.

* * *

Author's Notes: This was a difficult chapter to write … I had a goal in mind for some events, but not a path to follow. I knew I wanted Sarutobi to survive, which meant no Summoning the Shinigami, which meant Sarutobi had to somehow prevent the summoning of the previous Hokage. This meant that Orochimaru would need to be stopped first, and in order to complicate the Tsunade retrieval, he had to survive but have a wound or injury that Kabuto would be unable to fix. In short, there were so many differences to account for, that I could only vaguely use the manga as a guideline.

Credits: Luthorne was a big help in suggesting areas of bad flow, grammar or spelling in this chapter.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 06

* * *

Naruto found Jiraiya standing just outside the East Gate, and with an expression of pure determination marched up to him.

"Just because we're on a mission doesn't mean I forgot your promise from before the Finals," the boy warned the man as they were about to leave. "You owe me the Yondaime's most prized jutsu, and you will teach it to me."

Jiraiya looked like he wanted to object, then shrugged and started walking away from Konohagakure.

"Oy! Wait for me!" Naruto called and had to run a short distance to catch up, a feat not made simpler with the large backpack he carried, and the ninja equipment he had not dared leave behind. The weights on his limbs certainly didn't help.

"We won't have much time for training," Jiraiya stated as Naruto slowed to match his pace once caught up. "Most of the day between towns, we'll be busy travelling. And in towns we need to ask around for anyone who may have seen her."

"Wait, _her_?" Naruto realised. "The new Hokage is gonna be a girl?"

"She's my age, so woman would be more accurate," Jiraiya chuckled before his eyes glazed over in lecherous fantasy.

"Snap out of it!" Naruto barked and gave the old pervert a kick in the shins.

"What did you do that for?" demanded Jiraiya. "You should show some respect for your sensei!"

"I'll show you respect when you stop acting like a pervert!" countered Naruto hotly. "And I'll show you! I'll prove that I can learn a technique while on the road by mastering the Yondaime's prized jutsu!"

_'Just remember that I'm not going to help with it,'_ reminded Ranma.

_'I'll do it alone!'_ Naruto insisted. _'I managed to learn the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu in one night on my own, and I'll manage this one as well!'_

"We'll see about that," Jiraiya mused. Pulling a balloon from his pocket, he inflated it with a weak water jutsu, which Ranma took pleasure in reporting he had seen and would look into it later.

Holding the balloon out towards Naruto, Jiraiya proceeded to make it burst apart as though a bomb had been placed inside. It had started small, like there were small poles poking the rubber from the inside, but then they had stretched the surface too far and it exploded.

"This is the first step to learning the jutsu," declared Jiraiya in a sage manner. He then made another water balloon, which he dropped in Naruto's hands. "You are to burst this balloon like I did. When you can do that without poking holes, we will move on to the next step."

Naruto weighed the balloon in his hands for a moment, hearing the water inside sloshing around and wondering how to proceed.

_'Okay, I'll give **one** hint to start you off,'_ sighed Ranma. _'He rotated chakra inside the balloon, setting the water in motion enough to make it burst the rubber surface.'_

_'I don't need your help,'_ Naruto sniffed in exaggerated offence.

Regardless of his mental statement, Naruto followed the line of thought provoked by Ranma's clue, and slowly started feeding chakra into the water, soon feeling the water inside swirling against the balloon in his hand.

The only thing that happened was that the balloon flattened itself with the rotations inside.

This was certainly harder than following instructions written on an ancient scroll …

* * *

It was nearly a week later after an epiphany given by a cat playing with a ball that Naruto figured out how to make the water balloon explode like Jiraiya had shown. 

All that was needed was to spin the chakra inside in multiple directions until the centrifugal forces tore the balloon apart in a watery splash. Moments after the container was gone, the visible chakra ball dissipated as well.

"Okay, so you got part one," Jiraiya admitted after Naruto showed what he had managed to do. "But the second part will no doubt have you stumped for a while. Observe."

Jiraiya bought a sack-full of what Ranma called "hairless tennis balls", and gave all but one to Naruto. To the naked eye, the ball just sat in Jiraiya's outstretched hand before spontaneously blowing apart in a storm of rubber.

"This is all you have to do – but I'll warn you right now, it will be about a hundred times harder than step one," the old pervert announced.

Quite contrary to what Jiraiya expected, Naruto managed to complete this step in less than an hour, by applying what he had already done with the water balloon to it, and increasing the power of the chakra inside until it made the ball explode.

"Don't get too cocky," the Toad Sannin warned as Naruto smirked at his own achievement – that, and he now had some playthings to experiment different techniques on, as he hadn't used more than three of the balls. "This is the hardest step."

Taking out a balloon, Jiraiya inflated it with air until it was about the same size as the water balloon, and tied it shut.

Then he simply held the balloon in his hand, indicating that he wanted Naruto to pay attention to it.

Naruto couldn't see what was going on, but assumed it had something to do with what he'd learned so far.

"Let's see what it looks like inside," announced Jiraiya after almost a minute of silence.

In his other hand, a swirling ball of chakra appeared, glowing strongly of blue chakra and sucking in air around it, creating a new breeze in that area.

"Unlike the last two steps, the object of this lesson is to use both of them without breaking the rubber casing," Jiraiya pointed out. Possibly to inspire him, Jiraiya gently touched the Rasengan to the trunk of a tree, where a spiral pattern carved itself into it effortlessly – wood chips and strips raining to the ground.

Jiraiya pulled the ball of chakra away, and aimed lower before thrusting it in, making the back of the tree explode outwards, taking down a path of trees behind it, while leaving the front of the original tree still intact with only two spiral carvings in it.

Naruto was handed his own balloon, and his normal enthusiasm overwhelmed his recently acquired cautiousness.

-POP!-

"Keep trying," Jiraiya chuckled and handed the boy a bag of deflated balloons.

Regaining his composure, Naruto ignored the laughing in his head as he went about trying to find a way to have the same power as his previous two steps, while maintaining a perfectly smooth and undisturbed balloon surface.

* * *

Naruto lost track of how many towns the two of them visited, or even how many days passed. He was completely lost in the world of training with Ranma, and trying to figure out the Rasengan on his own – even their mission was not in his thoughts as he stared intently at the cheery, inflated rubber bladder in his hand. 

He could make the chakra spin inside in the pattern it was supposed to move in – but the only reason the balloon didn't burst was that the swirling was at such a weak strength that it couldn't harm it.

_'I'm sure the old coot skipped a step,'_ the blonde demon container grumbled darkly in his mind, sitting in the room he and Jiraiya had gotten at some in – they all looked and sounded the same, so he had given up trying to tell them apart. Jiraiya was probably out "gathering information" or something useful.

_'Or you could be a complete idiot, but too stubborn to realise it,'_ Ranma usefully supplied.

_'I got the Kachuu Tenchin Amaguriken right a few days ago, didn't I?'_ Naruto protested. _'That proves I'm not dumb!'_

_'Even a monkey can copy someone if they watch long enough,'_ added Ranma sagely.

"Shut up," Naruto growled.

-Pop!-

"Damn it, I'm down to my last three!"

-Knock-knock-knock-

"Huh? Who could that be?"

_'Maybe the neighbours coming to complain about the loud bursts and muttering,'_ suggested Ranma. _'Be careful, though, whoever is on the other side, they are strong.'_

_'Hostile?'_

_'Without a doubt.'_

_'Then why answer the door?'_

_'Because they wouldn't let a door stop them if they were determined enough,'_ reminded Ranma. _'The best defence is a strong and surprising offence … catches them off guard.'_

Nodding to himself, Naruto opened the door, keeping on a curious and innocent expression to make those on the other side underestimate him.

Standing in the hallway was a large man, with blue skin, spiky blue hair, gills on his cheek bones and jagged teeth … all in all he resembled a shark. On his back was a handle attached to something thick, long and covered in sharp spikes or fish-like scales wrapped in ragged bandages.

Slightly in front of this intimidating creature, was-

"Sasuke?" Naruto puzzled. "What happened to you? You look so old! And what's with the stupid-looking cloak?"

"You have me confused with my younger brother," stated the man emotionlessly, shifting so the lower half of his face was hidden by the collar of the cloak. "I am Uchiha Itachi, and I am here to _retrieve_ you."

_'Saotome Final Attack!'_

"Sorry, I'm on a mission, nice meeting you, though … you should stop by Konoha and see your brother some time, he seems very lonely. Good day," Naruto blurted faster than he had wanted, and slammed the door shut before jumping out the window.

He didn't need to have a good sense of hearing to know that the door was reduced to splinters not a moment after it struck the frame, and even a civilian would have felt the wild killing intent directed at him, no doubt from the shark-man as Itachi didn't give the appearance of having a single emotion with which to rub away his apathy.

"I knew I shouldn't have tried my hand at gambling!" the boy lamented as he leapt across the rooftops in random patterns to avoid potential projectiles. "Bad guys always find gamblers!"

_'Playing a single token in a Biju-themed slot machine is hardly gambling,'_ Ranma pointed out as they used a telephone wire to swing to higher grounds. _'But it was pretty impressive winning enough tokens to fill a sack large enough to fit the two of us.'_

_'And that was a nice idea, having it all converted to paper money that take up less space, but we have a bigger problem here!'_

Using Shushin no Jutsu to get behind the two pursuers, Naruto doubled back to the Inn they stayed at, in the hopes that Jiraiya-

-Bamph!-

-was there.

"You guys should know better than to attack my protégé while I'm still alive," the confident and taunting voice of Jiraiya announced from atop a large horned toad with thick wrist guards and large swords on its back.

The shark-like man growled and tore the weapon from his back, intent on attacking even as Naruto stopped running to watch as the scene played out.

Itachi stopped the violent man.

Using some unheard words to argue his case, no doubt without a trace of emotion, Itachi and the shark-man retreated.

"That should keep them from trying again for a while," Jiraiya muttered. "But we need to move along quickly so as not to tempt fate … And remember, you've still got to get the third step right – it's a very useful technique, and will usually frighten off most experienced ninja. The Yondaime got quite a reputation during the last war, because of this technique and another."

"What was the other one?" asked Naruto, now regretting not having paid better attention in class, as he was sure they had covered this at some time – probably when he was asleep or out pranking.

"Hiraishin no Jutsu," Jiraiya answered, looking solemnly into the distance, as though reliving days of old. "A teleportation technique that uses no special seals, so it was almost impossible to predict when he would do it …"

"I want to learn it!" Naruto could not help but exclaim. "With a technique like that, people are sure to respect me!"

"We'll see," Jiraiya chuckled sadly and ruffled the prepubescent ninja's hair. "… One Jutsu at a time …"

* * *

Perhaps to annoy Jiraiya, or perhaps to prove he was worthy of learning more Jutsu, Naruto managed to discover what he had done wrong with the third step that very day, as they were moving on to another town. 

What was needed was the creation of a "shell" of chakra around the swirling madness to keep it all in check and shape. This shell would discharge its violent insides upon contact with a foreign object, creating a funnel blast or tube blast, laying waste to anything caught in the vortex that could extend as far as a hundred metres.

Ranma's only complaint about the technique was that it required close contact before it could be used – something that they had to work out quickly, because not many ninja would allow them to stay within their guard for long enough to plant this monster of a blast in their torso. This indicated that the technique was not a completed one, as surely the inventor would have seen this problem and tried to correct it.

_'Maybe combining the Moko Takabisha with it …'_ Ranma mused.

"Not bad," Jiraiya agreed, rubbing his chin in thought. "Might need to speed it up a little, and maybe add some more power … other than that, perfect! As a reward, how about I take you to do your first research? You could start your own book series, and I could help!"

"No thanks, old man," Naruto retorted. "I want to be accepted, not exiled."

Despite the obviously insulting comment, Jiraiya didn't comment, but rather carried on with what they were supposed to do – seeking out the next Hokage.

* * *

It was as Ranma was teaching Naruto how to sense power around him that Jiraiya wished to show him some local history in the form of a Daimyo castle, no longer in use for its original purpose, but remaining as a memory to the past. 

There remained one problem, however - where once the proud structure had stood, a fresh pile of rubble was all that was left.

"Why do I have the feeling we've found her?" Jiraiya muttered as he took in the sight of the former glorious castle.

* * *

Author's Notes: I apologise for the delay, but for some reason, this chapter was immensely difficult to force through … no matter how much I forced myself, it didn't sound right, or came out wrong. It also came out shorter than expected, barely passing 2000 words in length (Author's Notes not included), I'm really sorry about that, as I've previously promised no less than 3000 words per chapter – but I couldn't figure out how to extend it any more. 

Now, to those of you who complain that Jiraiya isn't really teaching Naruto the Rasengan, as opposed to the more detailed explanation given in canon, I say that we've deviated enough from canon now that reactions would be different for those in direct contact with Naruto – Ranma's uncanny ability to copy a technique at only a glance is what Jiraiya is counting on and what Naruto is slowly and subconsciously starting to learn.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 07

* * *

The collapsed castle had been abandoned for a while when Naruto and Jiraiya approached it.

"She can't have gotten far," the old man insisted confidently, having examined the area for signs that Naruto had not seen.

"How can you tell?" Naruto asked, curious about how it was possible to figure this out. Ranma was also curious, because he could only tell which general direction the people who were there had gone.

"There are four sets of footprints that haven't been covered in dust or worn down by the elements," Jiraiya announced, pointing at what looked like a bare patch of ground from where Naruto was standing. Ranma had also made note of these, but didn't get as much out of it as Jiraiya apparently did. "That means she's been here within a day – that, and I heard some villagers complaining about how the castle collapsed this morning when we cleared the last wall."

"Cheater!" accused Naruto vehemently. "Trying to sound cool …"

"No time for this," interrupted Jiraiya importantly. "We need to look for our next Hokage!"

* * *

When evening came and no clues had been gathered about the woman's whereabouts apart from still being in the city, Jiraiya admitted defeat for the day and pulled Naruto into a tavern to eat.

"And when we're done, I'm off to do some research!" the Toad Sannin declared lecherously.

"You're not getting Gamma-chan!" the blonde boy growled, remembering the last and only time he had left his money in the man's care. On Ranma's insistence, he calmed down. "I'm not buying your excuses, spend your own money."

"I don't know what you mean," sniffed Jiraiya in insult. "I'm only interested in the welfare of my student and the completion of our mission."

"Your 'research' has nothing to do with our mission," argued Naruto.

"Of course it d- well, well … it's not that big a world, after all," Jiraiya started and stared grinning at a corner of the tavern. "Tsunade!"

Naruto looked in the direction of his current mentor's attention, and saw two women and a pig, the blonde, busty woman who slammed her forehead into the table as soon as Jiraiya called. Apparently she wasn't thrilled to hear from him – much like every other woman who had heard of him, his hobbies and his work.

Without an invitation, Jiraiya plopped himself into the seat across from the buxom blonde lady, and called out an order to the waitress for his and Naruto's meal – a serving that would require no less than four waitresses carrying three bowls each.

"What do you want, Jiraiya?" growled the woman, lifting her head so Naruto saw her face … as well as her massive cleavage. There was something wrong about her – and it all centred around the diamond tattoo on her forehead. This woman was supposed to be Jiraiya's age? She hardly looked a day over thirty!

'She must be using an illusion to hide her age,' Ranma concluded. 'Though it is masterfully done. There's hardly any trace of chakra being drawn, yet there is a very large supply stored in that tattoo. This goes far beyond any illusion technique we've ever seen … it's almost more like she transformed into a younger body!'

'Wouldn't that jutsu wear off when she falls asleep?' Naruto questioned.

'Who said it doesn't?' Ranma countered. 'But I'm sure there are ways of maintaining a jutsu through lost concentration.'

"An old friend can't stop by to say hello?" Jiraiya asked in mock aghast. "You hurt me so, my lovely!"

"Not as much as if I hit you for stalling," threatened Tsunade. Once more, Naruto wondered how the old man could have chosen someone like that as his replacement. "What – do – you – want?"

"I'm here to bring you back to Konoha," the white-haired man confessed seriously, all trace of humour vanishing from his face.

"I swore I wouldn't return," Tsunade countered snappishly. "Not after what happened."

"You've been selected to be our Godaime, Konoha needs you," persisted Jiraiya.

"The Council must really have been desperate to send you," growled Tsunade, gripping the table hard enough to leave indentations of her fingers.

"We weren't sent by the Council," argued Jiraiya. "They might even be unaware of our mission. No, it was Sensei who sent us – he had faith in that you would be the best candidate to fill his shoes now that he is unable to carry out his duties."

"Sensei?" gasped Tsunade, wide-eyed with emotion. She regained her composure, even if her assistant or companion didn't. "I was given the impression that he had died at Orochimaru's hands … when he still had them …"

"So he found you as well," muttered Jiraiya. "What did he tell you?"

"Konoha is at war with Sand and Sound," summarised the elder of the two women. "He fought with Sensei and killed him at the price of his hands."

"Wounded," corrected Jiraiya. "Orochimaru got his arms burnt off as he tried to kill sensei, thanks to quickly arriving medi-nin and over a full day of surgery, sensei survived but he can't serve in his duties – so he sent us to get the best candidate for his replacement. You."

"You're dumber than I thought if you believe I'll take the job," deadpanned Tsunade.

"If you won't take the job, then at least see what you can do for Sensei's injuries," ventured Jiraiya. "If you can heal him, then we won't need a replacement after all …"

"What did the traitor want, anyway?" voiced Naruto. "He had to have some reason to find you."

"None of your business, kid," countered Tsunade, and gulped down the rest of her sake bottle – signalling to the bar maid that she needed another. "And I said that I won't come back to Konoha."

"Coward!" Naruto snapped, standing and leaning on the table, glaring at the elder woman. "Whatever happened in the past doesn't make up for leaving the old man hurt when you could have helped! If I didn't know any better, I'd bet you were helping Orochimaru and don't want to risk getting caught!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," returned Tsunade calmly, and accepted the bottle.

"He wanted you to fix his arms," Jiraiya deduced. "But it's impossible to fix something that isn't there …"

"So he brought a few donors with him," Naruto realised … with some help from Ranma.

'We need to work on your deductive reasoning,' Ranma announced inside the blonde boy's head.

"Nasty," Naruto added. "Wearing someone else's arms … ew."

"If you find that concept so disgusting, you haven't got what it takes to be a ninja," announced Tsunade, gulping down the content of her bottle and gaining a noticeable flushed face from inebriation. "Quit before you're killed."

'Oh, she's goin' down!' Naruto decided – and not argued by Ranma.

'Be careful, though – she's considered the best choice for the position of Hokage for a reason,' was Ranma's only comment.

In less than a second, Naruto was halfway across the table to give the woman a black eye for her observation, but was held back by Jiraiya from getting all the way over. It was noticeable that he wasn't putting up much of a fight to get free of the old man's grip.

"And having a temper won't help keep you alive," added the woman coolly.

"That's it! We're takin' this outside, now!" Naruto declared. He had improved a lot in the last month or so, and he didn't like people under estimating him.

"Your apprentice seems to have a death wish," Tsunade commented to Jiraiya.

"No, but he's fond of the Hokage and aspires to become Hokage one day," the man returned. "Since you insulted him, and Sarutobi and his title he feels the need to act out … he's still maturing into his job."

"He needs to learn not to challenge everyone he sees to gratify his ego," stated Tsunade. "I accept your challenge, boy, let's take this outside."

Jiraiya let go of Naruto with a sigh – the woman with Tsunade looked like she was about to faint in outraged shock at the sudden turn of events. Naruto couldn't remember having seen eyes that wide since the last prank he pulled on Konoha … ah, the good old days …

Outside, Tsunade stood waiting confidently.

"Let's get this on!" Naruto declared and got into a ready stance.

"Rules first," Tsunade interrupted. "You get to use everything you can think of, I can defeat you with a single finger."

"What?" demanded Naruto, highly offended with how much he was being underestimated.

"In return, when you lose, I'll get this cute little wallet of yours, and its content," continued Tsunade smugly, holding up Gamma-chan, who had started bulging again.

"Monster!" exclaimed Naruto hotly. "Gimme back my wallet!"

"Should you win, however, I'll give you this," at this, she pulled out a necklace from her considerable cleavage. "It's worth enough to buy several mountains."

"Why does everything boil down to bets?" groaned Naruto, and focused on the task at hand. "Okay, you got a bet!"

"Any time you're ready," the woman announced, holding up her right hand and extending her index finger to show she was ready.

On the sidelines, Jiraiya was holding a bottle of beer, and seemed to enjoy the starting show, while Tsunade's travelling companion and pet seemed to worry about what kinds of damage the woman would inflict on the unfortunate youth.

Had Naruto not been influenced by Ranma for over a month, he would undoubtedly have rushed into this fight without a care other than dishing out some pain – but with Ranma's help, he analysed the situation a great deal more carefully.

'Okay, she's watching our every move,' Naruto deduced after a quick observation. He then went a little deeper in his scrutiny using the techniques Ranma had just started teaching him. 'She is curious and gathering chakra into her muscles for quick reaction time, speed and strength.'

'She's also starting to get impatient and might start calling us cowards if we don't act soon,' added Ranma, proud that Naruto was reading the woman accurately enough to get those things.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto cried, foregoing the normal hand seals in favour of drawing kunai from his pouch, an action that visibly surprised Tsunade, as very few shinobi are able to perform jutsu without the use of hand seals, or even half seals or pre-made seals – least of all something as advanced as the Shadow Clones.

Naruto clones rushed at Tsunade in half a dozen, while the real one was hidden by their advance.

It was laughable how simple the woman made the disposal of those clones look – a slight pivot on her foot here, a poke there and within seconds, there were no more clones.

Tsunade scanned her surroundings quickly, and ducked and wove gracefully between the onslaughts of shuriken that shot at her from every direction. The pendulum effect of her blonde pigtails was an awesome sight – but Naruto honestly thought that the same effect acting a little lower in front was even more fascinating, as he sent another rush of clones at her.

With slightly less ease, Tsunade disposed of the clones that now rushed her from all directions rather from one direction. She still made it look pitifully simple despite the team work and skills the clones exhibited.

"Is that your only trick?" called the woman. "Sending clones to do your dirty work?"

"No," Naruto answered behind her, causing her to swivel on one heel and duck out of the way of a swirling blue ball of chakra held by Naruto, who had appeared out of nowhere.

Recognition flashed across her face upon seeing the jutsu, and rather than getting close to the ball, she grabbed Naruto's forearm and propelled him onwards, making the ball touch the ground.

-WHOOSH!-

A moment later, in a great puff of dust a tunnel had been dug into the street, going over a hundred metres down a thirty degree slope, tall and wide enough for a man riding a horse to get through comfortably.

Clearly, he had improved since first learning the technique, now mastering the cylindrical blast as well as the conical one.

At least the village now had the beginnings of a walk-in well.

"Kuso!" Naruto cussed angrily, and jumped to his feet where in his hands two more balls formed.

"Stop!" Tsunade commanded before Naruto could take another step. "Where did you learn that jutsu?"

"The old pervert taught me," snapped Naruto, holding the Rasengan away from his body to avoid accidentally injuring himself. "So what?"

"You taught a newbie one of the most destructive jutsu known to man?" demanded Tsunade of Jiraiya.

"So?" Jiraiya shrugged. "He isn't completely stupid – he beat a Hyuuga in the Chuunin Selection Exams, using an improvised version of their secret techniques. He can handle it."

"How long have you known him?" continued Tsunade, ignoring Naruto, who was still standing there with a pair of Rasengan in his hands.

"About a month …" Jiraiya estimated.

"And what made you decide in the span of a month that he was able to handle the responsibility of having such an awesome jutsu at his disposal?" she demanded hotly.

"I decided based on his training gusto and … tenant …" he hinted.

"Oh … that's him?"

"This is Naruto, yes," confirmed Jiraiya.

"Hey! Stop talking about me like I'm not here, and let's finish this thing!" demanded Naruto hotly.

"You won," Tsunade dismissed.

"What?"

"I used more than one finger to stop you," the woman explained. "I broke the previously agreed-upon rules and automatically forfeited the match."

Tsunade pulled the necklace from her cleavage and handed it to Naruto.

"Keep it safe," she added as she fastened the thing around his neck. "It belonged to my grandfather, the Shodaime Hokage."

"Huh?" Naruto intelligently questioned. "Hey, wait – I can't take this!"

"Of course you can," insisted Tsunade. "You won the bet. It's yours."

'That's not what I meant,' grumbled Naruto.

'Keep gender bias to yourself,'

Ranma cautioned. 'Besides, I think it's a peace offering of sorts for offending us.'

Back inside the tavern, Naruto was reunited with his wallet, and barely managed to hide it in stuff space, a trick Ranma had put in the time to teach him, before Jiraiya started preaching about keeping it safe for him.

"Youth like you wouldn't know how to responsibly handle his money!"

"I'm more responsible than you!" Naruto countered, and slurped down the ramen that had been delivered to their table. It wasn't nearly as good as Ichiraku's, but still edible. "Besides, I hardly use my money, while you spent the money you held for me on your so-called research. I think that shows which of us the careful one is."

"Bested by a child, Jiraiya?" teased Tsunade smugly. "Things certainly haven't changed much over the years."

"You didn't fare better against him, and I'll have you know that research helped locate you, and will probably add another chapter to my next book …" sniffed Jiraiya proudly.

"Does that make me an investor in your book series?" Naruto asked, wincing at the realisation of what certain people might do to him if this ever came out.

"In theory," mused Tsunade. "But you never signed or made any form of contract, and your money was used without your consent – or that of your legal guardian, so officially I guess it could be called theft."

"I prefer to call it tuition for all the things I'm teaching him," corrected Jiraiya.

"I learned more on my own than I did from you!" Naruto accused.

"I taught you Kuchiose, I taught you Rasengan, and I helped with your training for the Exam …"

"I learned the Kage Bunshin on my own," argued Naruto. "And unlike you, I earned the respect of Gammabunta!"

"Let's not forget that you copied the Kaiten crudely after only having seen it once, and you also refuse to follow my suggestion for making you stronger …"

"Excuse me?" interrupted Tsunade. "Why don't you want to follow Jiraiya's advice for getting stronger – unless it's based on peeping on women …"

"It's not!" Jiraiya immediately exclaimed.

"I don't want to rely on it for strength," Naruto interjected before more speculation could be done. "It's evil, and though I've lived with it all my life, continued exposure to that chakra without having it filtered through me first would corrupt me and increase my chances of an early death or possession."

"Interesting and perceptive observation," Tsunade commented.

"I'm not as stupid as most of my classmates believed," boasted Naruto proudly.

"How about another bet?"

"Why bets?" groaned Naruto, slamming his face into the table, upsetting the tower of empty ramen bowls, threatening to teeter over and break. "Why can't people just do or don't?"

"You'll like this," Tsunade dismissed. "If you win, I'll come with you back to Konoha to see what I can do for Sarutobi-sensei – but if I win, you'll not only leave me alone forever, but also prevent Jiraiya from peeping as long as you're in his company."

"That's unfair! Do you have any idea how much work that would be?"

"Giving up before hearing what the challenge is?" mocked Tsunade. "And I thought you had a pair …"

"I GOT A PAIR!" roared Naruto. "I'll beat your challenge, easy!"

"Good," agreed Tsunade. "What you have to do, is to become as strong as I am. You have a month."

"A month?" shrieked the blonde boy, shaking quite a few glasses nearby. "I'll do it in a week! You've got a bet!"

"Brat, do you know how strong she is?" interjected Jiraiya. "She's one of the only ones capable of opening the Great Gates of Konoha without help! She probably hardly used any strength in crushing that castle! And I'm pretty sure she could lift Gammabunta over her head if she had a good grip!"

"Sounds about right," agreed Tsunade casually. "And you have a week to get that strong. Good luck keeping a watch over my perverted team mate for the rest of your life."

"Crap," Naruto stated, neatly summarising his situation.

* * *

Author's Notes: I once again apologise for the delay, but I've become more active in my job search lately, as well as participating in classes on how to find and apply for jobs – seeing as my solo efforts are so ineffective. As for the length of the chapter, it is as long as I can currently make it.


End file.
